New music releases

A long, long time ago (1969 to be exact) former boyband member Scott Walker made a solo album called 'Scott 4'. It featured dark, expansive, orchestrated songs about whores and lowlifes and love. It was and still is one of the best albums ever made and has influenced everyone from David Bowie to the Divine Comedy. The latest musicians to fall under its spell are Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane of The Rascals. Their collaborative project Last Shadow Puppets 'Age Of The Understatement' (Domino) has been excitedly muttered about for so long it's actually a surprise its finally here. And its far better than one might expect, showing a maturity (or at least a good facsimile of maturity) beyond their years, capturing much of the grandiose sweep of Walker while the northern twang and wordplay places it firmly alongside the urban romanticism of Richard Hawley. Some will claim it's a masterpiece and it'll battle hard with Portishead for the Mercury prize, and the affect it'll have on future bands can only be a good thing (spare us from any more Monkeys sound-a-likes). But as ambitious and impressive as 'Age Of The Understatement' is, it ain't nothing like the real thing. Er, baby.

We're travelling even further north for our Album Of The Week which goes to Emily Smith 'Too Long Away' (Spit & Polish). From the "forgotten part of Scotland" Dumfries and Galloway, Emily isn't yet as ubiquitous as modern folk stars Kate Rusby and Karine Polwart but possesses an equal talent as both an interpreter of traditional ballads and a writer of, often heartbreaking original songs. Playing alongside her musically dexterous husband Jamie McClennan, Emily has one of those voices that sounds as if she couldn't make an ugly sound if her life depended on it (we're not sure in what situation that might actually be necessary) and we fully expect to still be listening to her when we're old and grey (so that's our music sorted out until June... boom tish!) If 'Too Long Away' doesn't win her a folk award then we'll storm the stage and wrestle Mike Harding to the ground. We might do that anyway, just for fun.

While the second Postal Service album remains frustratingly in limbo, one of their remixers, Belgium's Arne Van Petegem has taken up the life-affirming-electro-pop baton. Styrofoam 'A Thousand Words' (Nettwerk) is all happy/sad songs, delivered by a man who describes himself as the "shy electronic guy afraid of singing", swathed in glorious bips, bleeps and clicks that ensures we're going to be playing 'A Thousand Words' rather a lot this year, especially at night. Magical.

John & Jehn are a French couple who've relocated to London (because you can't get decent chips over there, probably) and their album 'John & Jehn' (Faculty Music Media) pits their dual drawling vocals against ominous distant organ stabs, awkward guitars and eerie xylophones. Sadly, it's a great sounding album in search of songs. If they ever find them we hope someone will let us know.
We're not quite sure what to make of Kail 'True Hollywood Squares' (Big Dada). Sounding like an album made entirely of the skits most rappers put between their tracks, its nonetheless captivating and frequently hilarious (that is if you find the name DJ Handjob funny. We do). And since Outkast are AWOL and Gnarls Barkley have gone rubbish (don't argue, they have) Plantlife 'Time Traveller' (Rapster) is a more than adequate replacement, choc full, as it is, of unhinged soulfunkhiphop of the crazysexycool variety (withthekindofsongtitleswithoutspacesbetweenthewords). And that's all the albums.


» Reviewed by: Tim
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