Webcuts Music

We told you about the bounty of international acts coming Australia’s way in the next few months a couple of weeks back, now after an announcement they would play the Meredith music festival in Victoria got those in other states chomping at the bit it’s now official — Mark E Smith and his current cohorts known as The Fall are playing headline shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne on the back of this year’s Your Future, Our Clutter album. Also tour announcements for San Fran’s Girls and Canadian indie supergroup The New Pornographers.

Send out the search parties — Missing in action on the latest album from M.I.A. — “melody, listenability, and some semblance of a point”.

We didn’t review Ted Leo & The Pharmacists recent album The Brutalist Bricks, because frankly, the music speaks for itself. Trying to find 450-odd words to adequately sell Mr. Leo’s blood, sweat, and tears would be doing the man and his music an enormous injustice. You won’t see his music used on commercials, you won’t see him selling his soul on a magazine cover for a few more units sold. A punk rocker with a pure heart, Leo and The Pharmacists have always done it (for better or worse) their way, and you have to respect that… and buy their records. Man’s gotta eat, y’dig (read more about that here — http://www.tedleo.com/2010/07/07/regarding-the-rumors-of-retirement/). “Bottled In Cork”, one of the finer moments on The Brutalist Bricks, shows Leo throwing out enough hooks to make Cheap Trick envious and indulging in a little old fashioned fun, theatre style. I swear if he brought that show to London, I’d go see it.

Ornate and dreamlike New York trio Blonde Redhead return with Penny Sparkle, the follow-up to 2007′s 23, due out September 14 on 4ad. Details on the album are still somewhat scarce, but frontwoman Kazu Mazion recently released this vague soporific statement (edited for space here). “I can’t say what Penny Sparkle is about just yet.

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An hour in the company of The Big Pink is a sensory distorting experiment, and one that also questions your sexuality. It’s not a glam/gay thing, but there is a certain amount of homoeroticism about The Big Pink. The obvious sexual nature of the band name notwithstanding, and their record sleeves are all chicks and tits, but I think that’s to throw off the thinly veiled man-love shared between guitarist/vocalist Robbie Furze and bassist Milo Cordell.

An album that has sat with us for a few weeks being lovingly digested and adored has been Together, the fifth album from Canadians The New Pornographers. Notoriously reviled in certain Webcuts quarters for their “lacking of bringing it” on their last album Challengers, A.C. Newman and Co. have considerately made amends giving us one of their finest albums to date, with a little bit of everything to appease even the hardest to please ‘Porno fan. “Crash Years” is The New Pornographers standing united with the flame-haired Neko Case leading the power pop charge. Welcome back, eh? Together is out now on Matador. Expect to see it in our end of year lists…

An album that makes us love them more, but not enough to wear their t-shirts. The New Pornographers get it Together.

Sounding more like a theme park ride than a band, Ariel Pink pulls off both with a little 70′s funk and 80′s new wave self-exploration.

With their fourth album My Maudlin Career Glasgow’s Camera Obscura shifted further away from their indie pop origins to create their own take on Bacharachian orchestral pop and ’60s soul contrasted against sparse country melancholy. Keyboardist and backing vocalist Carey Lander talks about joining the band, meeting Lloyd Cole, the orchestral and country elements in their sound and how they came to cover the Boss.

Riding high on the charts, The National have found a resounding voice where “High Violet’s loneliest, weightiest moments feel like shared sorrow.”