ALBUM H Reviews

The Innocence James Mission Living In Extraordinary Sun On The Square Times HHHH HHHH Bella Union Bella789 (CD/LP) Infectious/BMG 4050538396393 Veteran trio’s first in (CD/2LP/CASS) four years Moving with the Times Between their refusal to play When James first wrote the music-industry game and political songs such as lilting folk-pop craft, Government Walls and Pennsylvania’s The Innocence Promised Land, two things Mission make inviting work happened: their third album with a cultish mystique. The Gold Mother brokered the trio’s commitment to different commercial success that had REISSUE shades of quietude brings a eluded them for years and OF THE MONTH purity of purpose to their Margaret Thatcher resigned. delicacy, justifying the Admittedly, it’s pushing it reverence they’re afforded by to suggest those events are alt. folk’s high-rankers. in any way related, but it’s That missionary zeal allows less of a stretch to suggest spouses Don and Karen Peris these veteran Mancs are at The “glorious” Jason Crest (plus bassist Mike Bitts) room their best when piss, vinegar to move on their homemade and polemic seeps into their A Kaleidoscope Of Sounds: It’s pretty much one big highlight, though 10th album, the limpid glint of oeuvre. Their (gulp) 15th Psychedelic And Freakbeat special mention should be made of several finger-picked guitars and the album, Living In Extraordinary Masterpieces inclusions in particular. Beeside by Tintern crystalline coo of Karen’s Times, is liberally laced with HHHHH Abbey is, of course, the inscrutable vocals providing understated all three and it’s their best UMC 6755234 (7x7”) quintessence of UK psych-pop, a hot frameworks for their tender since the turn of the century. A singly attractive psych/freakbeat afternoon reverie in which every detail feels elegies. The warm, thrumming Given a state-of-the-art summit decadent and drugged: the marginally flat Records From Your Room sheen by in-demand Mellotron, the incorporeal vocals, the typifies their approach, a production team Charlie Both as artefacts and as totemic touchstones, endless, mushy cymbal smashes which glancing piano providing Andrew (Alt-J, Wolf Alice) psych and freakbeat singles from 1966-69 suspend time. And then there’s the almighty sympathetic backing for the and Beni Giles …Extraordinary perch on a plane of perfection and desirability Save My Soul by The Wimple Winch: Phil evocations of Vashti Bunyan Times is often significantly next to which Fabergé eggs might as well be Smee claims dibs on the term “freakbeat”, and Stina Nordenstam in removed from the arena- congealed bin juice. Original psych/freakbeat which he appended to this single when it Karen’s querulous vocal: “Is friendly alt-folk that once singles also look like a better investment. appeared on the Bam-Caruso comp The there a word for these things made James’ fortune. (Than Fabergé eggs, not bin juice.) Psychedelic Snarl in 1984. An inspired we’ve felt and we’ve seen?” With its gnarly industrial So, if you’re going to whip out yet another appellation, as it happens – even though she wonders. bass and furious Kodo compilation devoted to a sub-genre which Save My Soul’s expertly ridden dynamics Elsewhere, aided by the drumming, opener Hank sits represents an impeccable confluence of elevate it to an ionosphere of its own. The Peris’ children on violin and somewhere between Laibach evocatively utilitarian design and magic-realist last 30 seconds build to a teetering climax of viola, the Mission find strength and a mutant, cyber-punk content, what better way to present it than as Dennis Hopper-grade murderous intensity. in sweetness and warmth, We Will Rock You, while the a box set of repro 7” vinyl 45s? If it’s freakbeat ye seek, savour the subtlety and sensitivity. Green scathing, fake news- A Kaleidoscope Of Sounds does just this, looming clang of When The Night Falls by The Bus evokes early Sufjan lambasting Heads and the with beloved tracks by 14 different artists Eyes and Say Those Magic Words by Birds Stevens, meditating on the gale force title track are presented back-to-back on seven 45s in Birds; but above all, cherish the behemoth elusive pursuit of something riddled with electronic period-appropriate company sleeves – Tintern that is Mud In Your Eye by Les Fleur De Lys, beautiful enough to honour grapeshot. Abbey and The Virgin Sleep on Deram, The a Who-trouncing episode of crunching, love. Look Out From Your To Tim Booth and Poets and The Fairytale on Decca, etc. The thudding malignance, with a Jeff Beck- Window summons vintage company’s credit, however, song selection proffers no surprises – with frightener of a solo by Phil Sawyer. (Though Leonard Cohen; Radiohead- they’ve retained enough of the borderline exception of Take Her Any we’ll always ponder why those lazily-pitched ish arpeggios illuminate Light their analogue magic to bring Time, that faltering triumph of fuzz-fringed, backing vocals were mixed so insanely loud.) Of Winter. The synaesthetic along the faithful. With its organ-led, mixed-in-a-drain psych-pop by God, and what about Magic Potion by The title-track, meanwhile, mounts acoustic guitars, folksy lilt Swedish Castaways-resemblers The Open Mind, adrift in the boondocks between a plea for “more kindness in and falsetto inflections, Many Longboatmen – and if your first thought is psych and putatively “heavy” rock? With its the world” over its Astrud Faces is quintessential James; that the comp appears almost entirely slavering three-chord wah-wah riff, it’s the Gilberto-ish swing. How Hard The Day is a classy, comprised of tracks that came to wider first Stooges album condensed into a sneeze. Even at their most battle-scarred ballad and the attention via those early Bam-Caruso Rubble It would also be a dereliction of duty not exquisitely fragile, The beautifully sparse Backwards compilations in the 80s, award yourself an to mention In Your Tower by The Poets, an Innocence Mission’s Glances effortlessly acid drop. Phil Smee, the mastermind behind Eastern-inflected mirage of recorders and determination to cherish all transcends its ridiculous Bam-Caruso, is also responsible for this super-compressed Duane Eddy guitar, and they hold dear rings true and “bonus track” status. compilation, housing it in a box which bears the glorious Black Mass by Jason Crest – timely. Kevin Harley Tim Peacock his distinctive graphic/collage hallmarks and hysterical in every sense, with its Dennis writing the knowledgeable booklet within – Wheatley paperback lyrics and stupefied though a brisk proof-read might have tidied Gregorian chanting prefiguring both Black a little handful of spelling inconsistencies, Sabbath and Slik. Blimey: it’s such a flawless missing punctuation marks, etc. compilation that it evidently merits two So, while on the one hand the track Dennises as well as five stars. Potential listing is made up of 14 now somewhat purchasers will need to be quick, as the box obvious psych/freakbeat bangers, these set is limited to 1,000 copies – though mine songs are individually and collectively so appears to be No 1,277. What alchemy is redoubtable that a five-star review is a given. this?! Oregano Rathbone

Kassin and Gilles Peterson’s Sonzeira music translate into an Relax project while also earning his impressively wide-ranging HHH spurs as a musician playing work. The energetic horn-led Luaka Bop LB 89 (cd/LP) bass with Caetano Veloso and fusion of Relax channels prime Brazilian producer’s second, Los Hermanos. late 70s Azymuth, while both multi-hued LP On his second solo album Digerido and O Anestesista One of Brazil’s most (his first, Sonhando Devagar, are pure Previsão Do Tempo- in-demand producers, was previously issued in era Marcos Valle in their mix The Innocence Mission: Alexandre Kassin has helped 2011), a palpable depth of of deeply funky grooves and stoop dreams oversee albums for the likes of knowledge and ease with ecstatic harmonies. Bebel Gilberto, Marisa Monte Brazil’s multifarious strains of The grand scale, subtle

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