The Juan MacLean at The Deaf Institute, Manchester

After the glowing review I gave their second album last month it goes without saying that I was excited about seeing DFA’s The Juan MacLean live. The band were performing at the weekly Now Wave night in Manchester’s The Deaf Institute, so I had the added anticipation of visiting an exciting venue for the first time.

Walking up a flight of stairs that wouldn’t be out of place in a boarding school, I didn’t quite know what to expect as I entered what is called the Music Hall. I was pleasantly surprised when I entered a small room that looks like a funky attic in a country house. The bar is lined with speakers, the stage is more or less the width of the room, and there’s even a lovely area of tiered seating if you can’t quite hack the whole standing and waiting lark.

The first band on stage was local band MAY68, whose energetic electro-pop was the perfect start to the evening. They were followed on stage by Everything Everything, whose ever-so-serious and disaffected songs was a bit deflating. I was also a little disappointed to learn that their name doesn’t have anything to do with Underworld. All that said, the band’s vocal harmonies were unexpected and impressive, meshing together chords that you don’t normally hear in this branch of indie-rock (apologies for the genre labels by the way).

By 11, when the gig was supposed to be over, The Juan MacLean had only started to set up on stage, and this was a lengthy process. What made this more enjoyable was seeing Nancy Whang sing along to the Chromatics’ cover of Running Up That Hill as it played over the house speakers. Eventually main man John said “I just want to play,” and things got underway.

Kicking off with album opener The Simple Life, it was clear from the band’s manner that they were there to do a job: play some kick-ass music. There was no crowd interaction, the band just got on with their business. After song number one Nancy Whang asked for an increase of volume, and John quickly asked “can you make everything louder? That was a joke.”

Their set was short but powerful. New single One Day was played, as was Give Me Every Little Thing, from 2003’s Less Than Human. The killer climax came with a 20 minute acid freakout gleaned from the bones of Happy House. On paper six tracks doesn’t seem like much of a performance, but their extended rendition of last year’s piano-led anthem was something to behold. A thousand stars washed over Nancy’s face as she sang “Launch me into space,” and the irresistible throb of the acid workout was just the icing on an excellent, if all too brief performance.

After the band finished an indie-disco kicked off with tracks from the likes of Animal Collective, Aeroplane and La Roux, so if you ever find yourself in Manchester on a Wednesday night and you’re not going to Old Trafford, definitely make a beeline for this excellent venue. With excellent new and established bands playing a lush and intimate setting, and even some great drinks specials to boot, it’s not a place to ignore.

Competition: win a pair of tickets to Daedelus

Courtesy of Choice Cuts, Analogue has a pair of tickets to give away to Daedelus in the Twisted Pepper this Saturday, the 2nd of May. With the tickets you’ll also gain entry to the POGO 4th Birthday party which is on after the Daedelus early show. Answer the following question to win -

What specialised piece of electronic equipment is Daedelus known to use during live sets?

Please send your full name and answer to info_at_analoguemagazine.com before Friday at 1pm. The winner will be chosen at random.

Upcoming Choice Cuts gigs:
Daedalus (Ninja Tune) @ Twisted Pepper 02.05.09
Souljazz Orchestra @ Sugar Club 03.05.09
Revolution: Hudson Mohawke & Mike Slott DJ Set @ Twisted Pepper 16.15.19
Poets Of Rhythm @ Whelans 21.05.09
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble @ Button Factory 30.05.09
Horace Andy & Ashley Beedle @ Whelans 11.06.09
Hot 8 Brass Band @ Whelans 11.07.09

Deerhoof announce Irish tour

As per the ATP website:

Friday July 10th
Whelan’s, Dublin
Doors 7.30pm
Venue: 25 Wexford Street, Dublin 2, Ireland, +350-1-4780766, www.whelanslive.com

Tickets: €17 + bf from www.tickets.ie, City Discs, Sound Cellar & Ticketmaster outlets nationwide (www.ticketmaster.ie)

Saturday July 11th
Roisin Dubh, Galway
Doors 8pm
Venue: Dominick Street, Galway, Ireland +350-91-586540, www.roisindubh.net

Tickets: €15 + bf from Zhivago Music, www.roisindubh.net

Sunday July 12th
The Pavilion, Cork
Doors 9pm
Venue: Carey’s Lane, Cork (off Patrick Street), +350-21-4276230

Tickets: €17 + bf from www.tickets.ie, Plug’d Records

This is great news, I haven’t seen Deerhoof since they played the Foggy Notions tent at Electric Picnic in 2007. It’ll be great to hear the new album, Offend Maggie live and see them back as a four piece for the first time in a while.

Deerhoof - Fresh Born from Toolshed Media on Vimeo.

Malajube - Labyrinthes

How would you like your prog pop sir? Served slightly overcooked with a side helping of French lyrics? Well, then this might be the album for you. On their aptly third album Labyrinthes, French Canadian four-piece Malajube unleash the proggy tendencies that were just about kept under control on their previous effort Trompe l’oeil. Like the Super Furry Animals at their most self-indulgent, the songs on Labyrinthes come slathered in all sorts of odd stuff. Opening tracks Ursuline and Porté disparu are good indicators of what follows. The first starts modestly with gentle music-box pianos before morphing steadily into a Muse shaped hulk of bombastic melody and power-pop guitars. It’s faintly ridiculous but it’s carried off with such cheery bravado that it’s hard to dislike. It is followed by the somewhat slight-sounding single Porté disparu,which, with its obvious barroom stomp, sounds like a strained concession to people looking for something as immediate as their previous hit Montréal -40’c. The rest of the album swings between poppy immediacy and over the top theatrics, tricked out with plenty of gaudy flourishes and ornate instrumental passages like the whooshing coda to Les collembas. After a while, it all gets a bit much, like the ELO playing an interval show at Cirque du Soleil. In other words, probably not everyone’s cup of tea.

At this point it’s probably worth considering the fact that Malajube sing entirely in their native Quebecoise French, making them one of the few bands to achieve a degree of popularity among an English-speaking fan base while singing in a different language. Their lush instrumentation and easy way with a melody probably go some way to account for this success. As with other groups who break the language barrier, such as Dungen and Sigur Ros, there is enough interesting noise going on beyond the words for the album to work. In fact, Malajube’s French lyrics are probably part of their appeal. As any fan of Sebastian Tellier knows, there can be something inherently fun about the French language when sung.

For the record, many of the song lyrics relate to the Catholic religion and its place in French Canadian culture. Apparently the boys aren’t too fond of le church. But to be honest, because of the band’s extravagant music styling, you can’t shake the feeling that it would be hard to take such lyrics seriously. A bright, over-inflated balloon of an album.

Jinx Lennon - Trauma Themes Idiot Times

One of Ireland’s less grumpy musical poets Mumblin’ Deaf Ro once talked about disrupting the small set of perspectives that music deals in, by writing from new perspectives. The idea was that breaking up the cosy relationship between the self-regarding “I” and the imaginary female “you” would help little-respected song lyrics move forward, and be a little more like literature. On his fourth album, Jinx Lennon goes a way towards fulfilling that mission. Over beats that are sometimes surprisingly catchy, he writes songs about the Other side of modern life - not so much angry complaints, which are plentiful and pouring out of everyone from Green Day to Lily Allen, but “awkward and real” criticisms. Rather than shouting nihilistically, Lennon seems to simply shine a light on things-as-they-are and say “see for yourself”. It works.

Some of the “trauma themes”: The fact that a football team is not a satisfactory replacement for actually living a worthwhile life, in ‘The Men Who Saved The Face of Football’. A study of the “don’t get involved” phenomenon of the unconcerned modern world in the particularly Fall-like ‘Taxi Man Face’. Sticking a knife in the eye of a house invader in ‘Protect Thyself And Thy Home’. Anything is potential subject matter.

It’s also a little refreshing just to hear the voice of the towns - a guy who speaks in a fairly thick Louth accent and makes no apology for it. There is no secondarity about it, no effort to squeeze through some sort of US/UK/urbane mould. Who else would bother with ‘Folk Music For The Midlands’, as Lennon does on the tenth track of this album? Where else are you going to hear about places like Oriel Park, Dowdallshill, Delvin Co. Westmeath or the De La Salle school from Ravensdale Forest? Or “mormons on bikes and in pairs” or even “some bollocks from Jonesboro I did an electronics course with”?

I suppose part of Jinx Lennon’s project is to make poetry out of those places and those people. There’s nothing that says they’re not worthy, and Lennon follows in a proud line of Irish poets and writers from Patrick Kavanagh through to John McGahern and Patrick McCabe by writing about them. That’s the way to get to “modern Ireland”, you see. You can’t just work in generalisations. You have to dig a little, notice things outside Dublin 2. Jinx Lennon, as much as anyone else, is writing the story of this country. Romantic Ireland is long gone and all but forgotten. What’s there now is a “tape recorder/answering machine/type voice”, a blankness with “rusted Pope’s medals” and memories of Italia 90 keeping people linked to a time long ago, but little else to permeate the bullshit of housing estates and “selfish stupid automatons”.

It’s not just a gloomy State of the Nation address though. It’s also incredibly funny, in a very dark way. And its songs, some of which come complete with potentially shout-along choruses, are eminently listenable. Which is convenient, because it’s almost important that people listen to this record, so that they can have the proverbial “one good look at themselves” in Jinx’s nicely polished looking glass.

1,000,000+ Simian Mobile Disco Fans Can’t Be Wrong

BIT slow on the uptake for this one I must confess, given that this track was first ripped off Radio 1 by some crafty bloggers about two months ago. In case any of you haven’t heard it though, here it is: new Simian Mobile Disco material!! 10,000 Horses Can’t Be Wrong is firmly in the Sleep Deprivation/Wooden/System style - minimally-technoish beats and clicks, made all the more aurally pleasing by SMD’s use of vintage synths, modular racks and such, which seems to give everything a cosy warm sound.

And here’s Synthesise, a track they introduced just before 10,000 Horses Can’t Be Wrong. If you’re wondering about the videos, they’re by Kate Moross and Alex Sushon. The former is only 23 years old and has already designed t-shirts/videos/illustrations for La Roux, The Teenagers, Chromatics and Punks Jump Up, as well as various advertising materials for Cadbury and Apple - basically one of those incredible youth success stories that makes you question what you’re doing with your life. Or maybe that’s just me…? Either way, if you’ll please excuse me, I have to head to the kitchen and devour a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew and a family-size bag of Minstrels.

A Taste Of Kitsuné Maison 7

French fashion house and record label Kitsuné have put out a little teaser video to give us a taste from their upcoming Kitsuné Maison 7 compilation, as well as their FW09 clothing collection. 6 was an absolute gem of a record so let’s hope 7 keeps the quality coming…

Radio Soulwax goes all hi-tech and Internet-y on us

Not content with blitzing almost every festival of casual interest over the last two years (and this summer), the Dewaele brothers have announced plans to bring their own special breed of danced-up pan-genred fabulousness under the 2manydjs guise online. In a move that made me instantly think of Richard Curtis’ latest offend-nobody lite-flick The Boat That Rocked (despite said film having nothing in common with what I am about to announce, apart from the common radio theme - such is the strange, strange way my brain operates) they will be broadcasting Radio Soulwax onto the interwebs via a dedicated site at www.2manydjs.com.

Ohhhh don’t click that link yet, you naughty, electro-mashup-hungry, impatient little people. The site will only be live for the month of June, but it will feature such goodies as themed hours, new mixes (naturellement), special guests, and, it being the Internet, some sort of mysterious visual element, which should make the whole thing more than worth the wait.

Fever Ray - Fever Ray

It must be fun being Karin Dreijer Andersson. If virtually any artist I can think of (apart from Björk; Björk can do anything) decided to sing about a friend they’ve had since they were seven and who they have conversations on the phone about dishwasher tablets with, it would probably come across as a sad attempt at being weird, quirky and avant-garde. But not our Karin. As one half of Swedish electronica ensemble The Knife, weirdness is de rigueur for her. In fact, the absence of weirdness would probably cause some kind of mass revolt among her loyal fans (myself included).

It should come as a relief, then, that for her debut solo release under the Fever Ray moniker Karin has remained true to weird, bread-and-butter The Knife material. Though now a happy mother of two young children, Fever Ray sees Karin make a welcome return to the bleak synth landscapes and relentless vocal effects that first brought her and her brother Olof to international stardom.

To be honest, the majority of Fever Ray’s tracks really don’t steer too clear of waters sailed by The Knife. The vocoder is still omnipresent, used for the vocal masculating effect that has become practically a staple of their sound. This can get tedious after a while, especially if you’ve already had Silent Shout on repeat for the last three years; it’s almost a relief listening to vocoder-free When I Grow Up and Now’s The Only Time I Know, for which Karin has allowed her incredibly unique, almost hauntingly harsh voice to reign free.

Across the album, extensive use has been made of instruments such as vibraphones and malletophones, or synthetic imitations of them. Many of the true synth instruments also have that same sharp-attack timbre, giving the overall impression of an aural assault from an army of musical drums.

A few tracks are refreshing for their surprising originality. Now’s The Only Time I Know veers into pop-like terrain in its form and melody, while Triangle Walks bizarrely might make you feel like you’re wearing an Armani power suit and eating a sushi lunch in an ‘80s L.A. restaurant. Don’t ask.

Stand-out tracks aside, what Fever Ray lacks as a whole is a general unifying structure. The concept of putting this on from start to finish is difficult to imagine; the songs aren’t really that distinctive when compared to each other and they all seem to involve variations of the same instruments and compositional flairs. I kept waiting for something drastic along the lines of We Share Our Mother’s Health to appear and make me go ‘Yesssss!’ but it just doesn’t happen. Everything seems to sound the same; even the aforementioned stand-out tracks don’t really stand out that much.

With that aside, there’s still plenty to appreciate in this album, even if this is your first foray into the Dreijer family music catalogue. However, despite the clear quality of the material, Fever Ray fails to explore territory that wasn’t already traversed by Karin’s work with her brother. Whether this will hold interest over time like Deep Cuts and Silent Shout have remains to be seen.