A few weeks back I had a chance to watch Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Britpop, which I thought offered a pretty objective perspective on the entire Cool Britannia scene of the early 90s.  Was it a creation of the media?  My conclusion is (and has always been) not entirely; the antecedents of Blur vs Oasis clearly started years earlier with Suede vs The Auteurs, two bands who very seriously presented a smart, modern British alternative to the pablum that was the American “grunge” scene (specifically its watered down generic brand of teen angst).  What came in their wake was a succession of bands who embraced what it meant to be young, poor, and working class.  In the worst case scenario, we ended up with Menswear plastered all over the NME.  In the best case, we were blessed with Pulp, who’d been toiling in the margins of the British music scene for ages, just waiting for the times to catch up with them.

Jarvis Cocker and Pulp were true visionaries, whose two defining documents, Different Class and This Is Hardcore were and still are the bookends to the Britpop story.  Three years ago, when Cocker finally surfaced with his debut solo album (Jarvis), it was almost as if time had stood still.  The caustic wit and cunning pop sensibility that made him such a delectable and unexpected pop star nearly 10 years earlier was intact.  “Don”t Let Him Waste Your Time” was classic Cocker, while “Cunts Are Still Running The World” spared no one its venomous bite.

What then should we make of “Angela”, the first offerings from Cocker’s latest, Further Complications?  At first listen, it may be to say that it’s more of the same, but I won’t be so quick to judge, especially when the album is produced (or should we say recorded) by Mr. Steve Albini.  Cocker and Albini is certainly a pairing that I never would have imagined in a thousand years, but one that intrigues me and has me practically salivating thinking of the possibilities.

Even if it’s going to be Jarvis Mk.2, I’m getting and absolute kick out of watching him (literally) build a name for himself in anticipation of Further Complications’s release.  While you’re at jarviscocker.net you can sign up for his mailing list and get a free download of “Angela” (which, some of the more highly intuitive of you may have also noticed, is available right here).

MP3: Jarvis Cocker “Angela”
Myspace: Jarvis Cocker

(photo: Ian Darken)

When I hear a band is from Athens, Georgia, I tend to put too high an expectation on them, based on my deep love and respect for a couple of outfits that came out of there some twenty years ago that you’ve probably never heard of.  No one expects lightning to strike the same place twice, really, let alone five or six times, but there must be something down there in the water that breeds creativity and musical talent.

In the case of Venice Is Sinking, it’s more likely that these folks were born with innate musical talent as opposed to contracting some water-borne mutation.  Like the best of their city’s musical brethren, Venice Is Sinking have created their own niche genre–slow core space-age Americana with orchestral pop leanings–leaving the listener wondering how they ever survived without it.  Their second album, AZAR, was recorded with Scott Stolter (Mountain Goats) in an atmosphere of uncertainty; they were pretty much convinced this would be their last album., so they worked over eight months to create the album they always wanted to make.  The result is a truly beautiful collection of wistful songs about place, time, love and longing, and one of the brightest new discoveries of  2009.  You’ll shake and shimmy along with “Okay”; you’ll shake and shiver to the ominous David Lynch soundscape of “Sun Belt”.  Venice Is Sinking, and I’m going under for the third time, and absolutely loving every drowning minute.

MP3: Venice Is Sinking “Okay”
MP3: Venice Is Sinking “Ryan’s Song”
Myspace: Venice Is Sinking
Buy: Venice Is Sinking AZAR

(photo: Ilia Horsburgh)

I haven’t read many reviews of Lost Channels, the new album from Great Lake Swimmers, but of the ones I did peruse, all seem to come to the same conclusion:  it sounds the same as their other albums, which isn’t a bad thing, but it doesn’t offer anything new.  I think that Lost Channels does in fact offer something new to fans of Great Lake Swimmers, without sacrificing their soul.

And therein lies the key to what makes this new album appealing: soul.  Having recorded his first album in an abandoned grain silo, and numbers two and three in a church and hall respectively, Dekker opted to move in and out of various locations around the Thousand Islands.  Tony Dekker has always been a talented songwriter and lyricist, and the stark, atmospheric production of GLS’s previous albums set the tone beautifully; on Lost Channels, though, the sound is much warmer–as if these songs were recorded in a studio proper–giving it a more intimate and immediate vibe.

I always likened Great Lake Swimmers as being a series of long lost field recordings that someone stumbled upon by accident.  On Lost Channels, Dekker is writing and playing with purpose.  The sentiments of tracks like “Concrete Heart” directly touch the listener’s emotional core, and that’s exactly what he’s intended.  “She Comes To Me In Dreams” and the instant classic “Pulling On A Line” are far more pop than anything GLS has done before, and that’s a refreshing change as well.  As great as their previous three albums were, there are moments throughout where one song becomes indistinguishable from the next (or worse, from album to album).  Once you hear the songs on Lost Channels, you’ll never mistake them for being from any other Great Lake Swimmers’ album.

Dekker sat down for an interview with Baeble Music last week to talk about the making of Lost Channels and life on the road, which you can see by going here.  The band is on tour throughout Europe starting this week, and will return to Canada in time to play an open air concert at the foot of Niagara Falls on June 13 as part of the 100th Anniversary of the Boundary Waters Treaty Festival (and you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be there!)

MP3: Great Lake Swimmers “Pulling On A Line”
Facebook: Great Lake Swimmers
Myspace: Great Lake Swimmers
Twitter: Great Lake Swimmers
Buy: Great Lake Swimmers Lost Channels

(photo: album cover detail)

It took me a while to figure out what all the hype was about Marry Me, the album Annie Clark released under the pseudonym St. Vincent.  Clark is gifted with an acrobatic voice that soars through the air, stops on a dime, spins, twirls and dances in between the melodies of her intricate arrangements.

Marry Me is punctuated by abrupt time signature and tempo changes, and is anything but a predictable listen.  That same spirit of independence and the unexpected colours St. Vincent’s follow-up album, Actor, except that now it’s razor edged guitars and shrill electronic buzz saws grinding their way through many of the tracks.  It’s not what I imagined the album would sound like, but it sounds like a natural move on from her previous work.

“Actor Out Of Work” thumps along to a steel-eyed dance track akin to something I might have once heard on a Nitzer Ebb record; then at about the 1:25 mark, a chorus of heavenly backing vocals chimes in, sounding oddly like the backing vocals on They Might Be Giants’ “Where Your Eyes Don’t Go” (I know, I can’t for the life of me figure out what orifice I pulled that reference out of).  It shouldn’t work, but it does, and it works often throughout Actor.  Where you might have been able to describe her first album as “pretty” and be done with it, Clark’s latest set of songs won’t be as easily classified.  Pretty, yes, but edgy, tight, loud, elegant, and intense as well.  Actor is a challenging album in some ways, but rewards the listener with an assured, and highly enjoyable sonic experience.

MP3: St. Vincent “The Strangers”
Myspace: St. Vincent
Twitter: St. Vincent
Buy: St. Vincent Actor

(photo: Dustin Rabin)

Until I actually downloaded Royal Wood’s A Good Enough Day, I hadn’t realized just how many of its songs I already knew, but just never knew they were played by Toronto’s very own answer to M. Ward.  Multi-instrumentalist Wood has compiled an EP of material to bridge the gap between 2007’s A Good Enough Day and its follow-up.  The Lost And Found EP contains more of Wood’s finely crafted piano-led melodies, adding intricate string arrangements to his traditional song craft.

Wood connects with his audience on a deeply emotional level, and reminds me very much of another young, Canadian songwriter–Rufus Wainwright–in his authentic voice and dedication to the craft of chamber pop.  Like Wainwright, Wood’s arrangement don’t sacrifice substance over style, and vice versa.  At the heart of the matter, his choices come from an intuition to best serve the song.  If that means fleshing it out with strings and brass, then so be it; if the song calls for a more muted presentation, then the orchestral elements are stripped back.  It’s this deliberate nature in his songwriting that makes any collection of songs he writes so listenable and enjoyable.

MP3: Royal Wood “Don’t Fall Apart”
Facebook: Royal Wood
Myspace: Royal Wood
Buy: Royal Wood The Lost And Found EP