Entertainment For Lively Minds
Now Hear This!
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What's on the CD with the February 2012 issue
1. The Loose Salute - It's A Beautiful Thing
Meet this wondrous Cornish-based surf-dream-pop ensemble. Brian Wilson had the Californian waves to inspire him. Former Slowdive/Mojave 3 drummer turned Loose Salute singer Ian McCutcheon has fiercer Atlantic seascapes on his mind, and they show.
From the album Getting Over Being Under
2. Nada Surf - Waiting For Something
Literate, incisive troupers on the American indie landscape, Nada Surf have earned their stripes over a 20-year career. Their beautifully melodic Replacements/Hüsker Dü-style guitar pop only gets better with the years.
From the album The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy
3. The Phenomenal Handclap Band - Following
Who’s up for some dark disco à la Was (Not Was)? New York crate-digging collective PHB fly in the face of hipness with a funkmungous album straight from annus mirabilis 1979, and add a grown-up psychosexual dimension. Man of taste Bryan Ferry says, “They’re my favourite new American band.” Us too.
From the album Form & Control
4. Kathleen Edwards - Sidecar
A beautiful breath of fresh air from the Canadian singer’s Bon Iver-produced fourth album. Willie Nelson, Gillian Welch, Tom Petty and The National are all in the mix, influence-wise
From the album Voyageur
A blistering reinvention of a track originally heard on the Mexican guitar duo’s self-titled album in 2006, re-recorded in Havana with an orchestra. R & G’s tour in February promises next-level Latino thrills.
From the album Area 52
6. Laura Martin - The Lesson
Mesmeric, handbuilt psychedelic folk from a splendid new talent who’s like an Oliver Postgate vision of Kate Bush. She comes from Maghull near Liverpool, also the birthplace of Meccano, perhaps explaining her deliciously DIY debut.
From the album The Hangman
It’s Norah Jones’s country band, in which the lissom pianist gets to sit on the metaphorical porch, sing words like “thang” and bang out brilliant old ’uns like this Ralph Stanley killer from 1955. The band formed in 2003 to play impromptu sets on the Lower East Side, forget life in the city, blow away the cobwebs and reconnect to the traditional music that they loved in the first place. Songs by Hank Williams, Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson were on the agenda. This is their second album and it’s the best alternative to alt.country we’ve heard in ages.
From the album For The Good Times
The Mercury-nominated east London foursome still get the jazz stamp – but you can hear dub, skiffle, drum’n’bass, easy listening, abstract electronica and pretty much everything bar heavy metal in their magnificently unclassifiable music.
From the album Portico Quartet
9. Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny - Dodecahedron
Hurrah for unrestrained art madness. This terrifyingly youthful Geordie polymath (she’s 21) has the oaksmoked voice and ancient-to-modern polymusical vision to back up her most challenging freakwear (eyeball bras, girl-tache, tiger outfits, etc). She’s a cut above the post-Florence crowd and we think you will be highly interested.
From the album Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose
10. Luke Hanes - Gorgeous George
This grapple-star opus from the former Auteur turned author of acclaimed Britpop memoirs is self-explanatory, poignant and one of the best releases of recent months. A hymn to the “mincing mauler of the Mecca”, it will have you in floods of tears.
From the album Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling Of The 1970s and 80s
11. DJ Food - All Covered In Darkness
Psychedelic rock made by samplers” is the mission statement for this over-the-top multi-genre melange by Strictly Kev of the noted Coldcut/Ninja Tune stable of no-boundaries dance artistes. Matt Johnson of The The, Jim “Foetus” Thirlwell and 2000AD comic artist Henry Flint contribute to a vaultingly ambitious concept album of quality freak-outery.
From the albumThe Search Engine
Yes, it’s Richard and Linda’s daughter with a twangsome country lament. Ma and pa guest on this debut LP, as does Martha Wainwright. It is, as they say, a family affair.
From the album Love Lies
13. Pop Will Eat Itself - Chaos + Mayhem
Eyes down for a modern Silver Machine from the reformed “Poppies”, led by founder member Graham Crabb now that Clint Mansell makes film soundtracks in Hollywood. Are we not men? We are grebo.
From the album New Noise Designed By A Sadist
Blazingly original British jazz pianist Cowley takes the venerable old joanna to places it’s never been before. This fourth album resembles a mind-blowing symposium between Hans Zimmer, Brian Eno and Vince "Peanuts" Guaraldi.
From the album The Face Of Mount Molehill
15. Mary Black - The Night Is Deep And Dark
A tender and meditative closer for this month’s CD from the mainstay of Irish music. Imelda May, Finbar Furey and Janis Ian are all on this exemplary album, her first for six years.
From the album Stories From The Steeples
