So that was 2010. What does Webcuts remember most about it? It’s hard to say, really. The landscapes shift, the memories flickr and 365 days blur into one long unending soundtrack. Webcuts lived vicariously through 2010, almost surprisingly so for a bunch of mid-30′s burn-outs, but hey, from Brisbane to London to Barcelona to Gothenburg to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, we were there, chasing those who chased their rock n’ roll dream.

The selection of tracks chosen appeared like one night stands that lingered a little longer than usual, almost all of them attached to a singular memory of the song being performed, either from a distance or elbows resting on the stage in mute admiration, or maybe just there emanating from a speaker aimed direct into our inner consciousness, refusing to budge. Tracks 20 to 11 are discussed here, and the countdown reaches its thrilling conclusion (envelope, please) below.

The song a reawakened Arcade Fire would open their 2010 shows, “Ready To Start” rolled into town like a dazzling carnival, drumming up intent (“Businessmen drink my blood/like the kids in art school said they would”) and setting the scene to follow. For a band only three albums into their career, it would be unkind to call The Suburbs their ‘comeback album’, but it dipped into a shared nostalgia of adolescence and ideals, succeeding in their goal where Neon Bible had failed. The Suburbs was an album to be proud of with far too many highlights to choose, so we went with one Arcade Fire chose too. (CS)

Fans’ poor reception and misunderstanding of MGMT’s new album lead a lot of people to simply ignore it altogether, which was a shame, because it boasted some gorgeous art rock. “Siberian Breaks” was the eleven minute middle of the record and nicely summed up the album’s penchant for musical journeying. From the melancholy acoustic open to the angular dreamy transitions and the mechanical spewing of the ending, MGMT’s weird ambitions shattered the indie pop ceiling of their debut. (JL)

One of the stand out tracks from The Morning Benders sophomore release Big Echo. “All Day, Day Light” crackled with electricity and smacked of effortless cool. As hand-claps slapped against the stab of guitar chords, vocalist Christopher Chu handed out alliteratively perfect lines like “someone somewhere sails the ocean/someone somewhere selling the seas”. The Morning Benders appeared out of nowhere with this near-perfect album, unburdened by pre-release hype and fanfare, hitting their marks as surely as a needle hits its groove. (CS)

Over fifteen years Les Savy Fav have been steadily forging a career based on angular art-rock ala The Fall/Pavement blended with post-hardcore topped with a pop sensibility. Root to Ruin showed age hadn’t mellowed their musical assault or dulled Tim Harrington’s acerbic tongue. Predominately a balls out mix of upbeat rock, covering sex, rebellion and, well more sex, Root to Ruin reaped the most rewards when the pace was slowed, painting the hip LA neighbourhood of Silverlake as a nightmarish place of vicious youths tied to mobile phones with tanned breasts and bleached teeth set over shimmering guitars and a bottom end as solid as Harrington’s own. (CR)

It was impossible to expect Deerhunter to topple 2008’s flawless Microcastle, but there were many moments in Halcyon Digest for fans to thrill to, and none as more perfectly crafted as guitarist Lockett Pundt’s contributions. His “Desire Lines”, strengthened the ‘pop core’ of Halcyon Digest with a meditation on age and disenchantment and a descending guitar line that gently pushed the song into 6 minutes plus of sighing serenity. (CS)

“Groove Me” was good enough to be another TV on the Radio song rather than a side project. The thumping bassline and stray hip-hop elements lent itself nicely to the new wave skeleton and disco guitars. It’s a huge plus whenever a well-constructed song is also infinitely catchy, and this had it in spades. Despite the Maximum Balloon album’s inconsistencies, when it was on, it was ON, and Sitek shined outside of his usual TVOTR role and provided some outstanding, funky diversions. (JL)

“1268” was undoubtedly one of the more aggressively danceable and musically intriguing debut singles released in 2010. North Wale’s We//Are//Animal blew in from outer nowhere (apologies to the Welsh), sounding like a feral Super Furry Animals. Little was known about them until “1268” arrived on our desk addressing the band as some kind of outdoor recording purists. What drives We//Are//Animal to make the music they do is still a mystery, but goddamn it‘s a good one. Their Blair With Project video in the Welsh countryside had us sold in seconds. Undoubtedly one of the highlights of the summer. (CS)

Whether their swansong or merely a bookend This Is Happening was LCD Soundsystem’s most realised vision to date. A fusion of vintage synths, complex percussion and ‘70s guitar riffs complemented with wry, bitter lyrics, which could only be written by a 40 year old who’d been through the music business, and life, blender and come out a little wiser and a little damaged. James Murphy knows damn well that after the party there is the inevitable comedown and after the sex the loneliness when you return home, alone. (CR)

The luminous disco swoon of Twin Sister‘s “All Around And Away We Go” would’ve found a perfect home in Studio 54, but instead had to make do as a regular staple on the Webcuts turntable. Pulled in by the part-breathy, part-kooky vocals of Andrea Estella, “All Around And Away We Go” glided in on a hypnotic rush that would’ve sounded incredible, coming up or coming down. The video clip for the song was just as off the wall, complete with a dance routine, a splash of psychedelia and some sweet stop-motion animation. Taken from the paired release of two EPs from earlier this year, we can‘t wait to hear a full album from them in 2011. (CS)

It’s almost embarrassing to admit that Wild Nothing’s debut album Gemini went largely unnoticed until months after it came out, and thus was never reviewed by Webcuts. Inexcusable and regrettable, but hey, shit happens. Word of mouth would drift from different corners of the globe and it became obvious that many people were beginning to take Jack Tatum’s music to heart. It wrestled with a kind of distant melancholia and of a pining for love, happiness, etc that always seemed never closer than an arms length away. “Live in Dreams” encapsulated such a mood perfectly and had two of the best opening lines of 2010 — “Sitting on the cigarette butt front porch/I could ask you “are you dead like me?“. Listening to Gemini was like standing in a roomful of diamonds, each track glistened and shone, the dreamiest of dream-pop gems. It seemed only fitting that it would sneak up on you and then refuse to leave. (CS)

Chosen by senior Webcuts contributors, Craig Smith (CS), Caleb Rudd (CR), and Jonathan Langer (JL).

It’s hard not to revisit their career when hearing a new Charlatans record for the first time. Having been trademarked in the mid ‘90s as the perennial indie survivors, The Charlatans have defined their ‘00s output with able but lacklustre releases. While never reaching the heights of Telling Stories or their self titled release The Charlatans have still produced enough recently to keep fans interested. And interested could not be more apt, with every new album it seems like The Charlatans take it upon themselves to reinvent their sound. Whether that be Tim Burgess’s falsetto vocals, a brief flirtation with dub, Dylan folk, or an attempt even to out Stones Primal Scream; it’s never been a boring ride. Where Who We Touch differs is that they have attempted to solidify their late period sound rather than recording whatever is floating their boat at the time, recording a mixed bag of the best and worst sounds from their last decade.

Opening with a wall of feedback before dipping their heads and driving into full on punk inflected power pop with “Love is Ending”, there is an immediate urgency to The Charlatans that hasn’t been apparent for almost a decade. Possibly resulting from their re-invigoration since their recent 20th anniversary Some Friendly shows, it seems from the oft that The Charlatans are trying to define who they are now rather than the band they were.  “My Foolish Pride” is complete Motown pop and conjures images of a band in monochrome, fronted by Sam and Dave. “Your Pure soul” is filled with acoustic guitar and Hammond organ and, dare I say it, it’s probably is what Embrace wish they sounded like.

“Smash the System” meanwhile treads a fine line between dodgy call and response cheese and pure pop chorus. It’s tantalisingly close to being vintage Charlatans but then just falls back again at the last moment. There’s a great song in there fighting to get out if only they would give in to it. Maybe they heard this cry as the Hammond returns to full force on “Intimacy” and “Sincerity”, driven by Jon Brookes’ pulsating drums and Martin Blunt’s bass it’s hard not to look back and wonder where this Charlatans has been in amongst the chaff of the last decade. The swagger on “Sincerity” shows the arrogance that we once found captivating but now seems like the redemption of a band uniting their output and the multi-facets of their chameleon output.

“Oh” could be the polarising track on the album. Robert Wyatt-esque in its English folk sound, and could only have been produced by a band comfortable with recording what they want. It’s fairground keyboard and finger picked guitar is daring and a step removed from any sound The Charlatans fans have come to expect from the band. When it segues into the ambient closer “You Can Swim” it’s a couplet of songs that could only have been recorded by a British band brought up on a tradition of music hall, psychedelia and The Kinks. It’s one last sideways glance from the band as they invite us in early before blindsiding us with their furthest departure yet. For once though it doesn’t seem forced, this time it seems justified. Maybe it’s a band giving us a little of what we’ve loved, and some may be rediscovering, along with their own eclecticism. Or maybe this is just simply The Charlatans in 2010.

The early signs for Interpol’s fourth album, referred to all and sundry as #4 were promising: Paul Banks’ solo project under the moniker Julian Plenti proved to be a surprise highlight of 2009 and both the long-lead download/video (“Lights”) and second more typical Interpol-esque single (“Barricade) showed great promise. Then Carlos Dengler, whose post-punk bass lines and goth Crispin Clover look-a-like presence were seemingly an integral part of the Interpol package announced his departure, apparently bored with the playing the instrument that made him famous. Next was the “my first 3D photoshop” design of the cover art which further shook our faith in the project and had us asking whether the decision to go back to Matador after a stint on a major and self produce was wise. After listening to #4 many times over we’re not sure, not sure at all.

Frontloaded with the cream #4 begins with “Success” an aptly labeled song, economical in length but not hooks, which has a puzzled Banks asking “Dreams of long life/What safety can you find?”. “Memory Serves” and “Summer Well” benefit from that classic Interpol throbbing rhythm section with the latter combining piano with delicate guitar both courtesy of Daniel Kessler. They pale in comparison with “Lights” however, surely one of the finest songs Interpol have ever committed to tape. It’s a song made for the listener to turn off the lights, max out the stereo and be enveloped by Kessler’s trademark reverb lead and Paul Banks’ moral dilemmas. Even the high concept Charlie White directed video, by turns erotic and ridiculous, can’t diminish its power.

“Barricade” is ironically prophetic, segregating the promising first half of the album with its distended second. Telegraphing their intent with their titles, tracks such as “Always Malaise (The Man I Am)”, “All of the Ways” and “The Undoing” are turgid five minutes whines that feel closer to double that in length. They’re songs built around a repetitious two note piano or guitar riff with gratuitous synths and strings that forget the tenets of the best Interpol songs – Dengler’s bass, intersecting guitars, intonations in Banks’ baritone and some connection with the listener. The only emotion these latter songs elicit is profound boredom. There are moments of hope; Sam Forgina can’t help but be an engaging drummer and there’s slivers of lyrical brilliance (“Try It On” in particular, whose “This twee neophyte” made me do a double take) but it’s like diving for pearls with a blacked out face-mask.

Our Love to Admire may’ve split fans of …Bright Lights and Antics but I’d rather listen to it a hundred times over than the second half of #4 again. Interpol will atone for their wrongdoings here, clad in black, surrounded by smoke and crimson lights on arena and festival stages for the next eighteen months where they can cherry pick the best songs, but album #5 will need to have much more consistent quality control for the band to be remembered by anymore than “Oh great band, especially the first two albums. What happened to them?”.

It seems Stars’ Amy Milan has a passenger along for the ride as the band recently announced that she and dad to be and co-member Evan Cranley are expecting their first baby due March 2011. Hang on… March 2011, isn’t that when Evan said they were aiming to tour Australia? Expect bottled milk instead of vodka in the rider from then on but in the meantime they’re cramming in as many US dates between now and the end of the year. Those dates along with two free downloads, the  “Opinions Versus The Sun (STARS Vs. The Album Leaf)” (from the Seance bonus EP) and another version of “We Don’t Want Your Body (TEEN Remix)” — which admittedly is pretty good but enough with the remixes! — are available from their official site. Finally Stars lovers may wish to view a ten song concert from earlier in the year shot at Le Poisson Rouge in New York which sees the Canadians on form and not focused (at all) on recent LP The Five Ghosts and in fact includes rarity “The Aspidistra Files” originally from The Comeback EP.

From the cradle to the The Church who are celebrating an astonishing 30 years as band with an acoustic tour labeled “An Intimate Space” of Australia where they’ll be playing a song from every album in reverse order, from last year’s Untitled #23 to 1981′s Of Skins of Heart. Included in the ticket price will be a complimentary 28 page colour programme with discographies and reviews and short overviews of each album written by Marty Willson-Piper. Ticket holders will also receive a free copy of the Deadman’s Hand EP, which includes the title track from Untitled #23 and four brand new tracks. Dates are as follows:

Nov 26 (Fri) – Joe’s Waterhole – Sunshine Coast
Nov 27 (Sat) – Judith Wright Centre – Brisbane
Dec 04 (Sat) -  Tilley’s – Canberra
Dec 05 (Sun) – Notes Live – Sydney
Dec 08 (Wed) -  Lizotte’s – Central Coast
Dec 09 (Thu) – Lizotte’s – Newcastle
Dec 10 (Fri) – Lizotte’s – Newcastle
Dec 11 (Sat) – Milton Theatre – Milton
Dec 16 (Thu) – The Gov – Adelaide
Dec 17 (Fri) – Thornbury Theatre – Melbourne
Dec 18 (Sat) – Blakiston Theatre – Geelong

We’ll leave you with another Passenger, Brit indie-folk singer Mike Rosenberg and his animated clip for “Golden Thread” directed by Mark Charlton whose credits include The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks. Passenger releases his album Flight of the Crow featuring collaborations with Australian artists such as Lior, Boy & Bear, Katie Noonan, Matt Corby, and Simon J Berckelman, today (Sep 24) on Inertia. Also in breaking Inertia news the Australian label has inked a distribution deal with the still influential Sub Pop. The first fruits of this pairing will be No Age’s Everything In Between as well as the first album in 20 plus years from pioneering Glasgow duo The Vaselines, Sex With An X.

The cross overs. Every year has them; bands that get touched by the hand of hype and go from being blogged about to actually selling significant quantities of records/MP3s along with world wide tour schedules and high billed festival slots. This year one of those bands is Brooklyn’s The Drums who have certainly enjoyed a lot of column pixels and radio play on the strength of their back to basics c86 indie-pop as imagined by Phil Spector self titled debut album and its omnipresent lead single “Let’s Go Surfing”.

They’ve also attracted their share of detractors, partly due to their swift “zeros to heroes” rise to fame sure, but also down to the endearing/irritating on-stage persona of front man Jonathan Piece. Love, or hate them you can’t escape them and its hard not to be hooked by their hooks. Static’s Chris Berkley sits down with a drink with three quarters of the band –Jonathan “Johnny” Pierce, guitarist Jacob Graham and drummer Connor Hanwick (bassist Adam Kessler absent) – for a lesson in pop song 101, loving Orange Juice at the tender age of 12, synths vs guitars and how to avoid being drowned by the wave of success.

Welcome gentlemen. It’s drinking and smoking time, right? You feeling relaxed?

Johnny Pierce (JP): We’re feeling pretty relaxed.

There probably hasn’t been too much time to relax in The Drums in the last twelve months or so. Does it feel like a bit of a whirlwind? You must have had one or two pinch yourself moments, Johnny?

JP: Yeah. Well, I mean yesterday, at Splendour in the Grass, was one of those “pinch yourself” moments. It’s just a weird thing being on the other side of the world, you know? We played our first show in the lower east side of Manhattan a year and a half ago, or a little less than that. So to be in Australia and have so many people being encouraging and so sweet, it’s really more than we could have ever dreamt.

Jacob, when it sort of started happening for The Drums, when the fever pitch started, you guys had to go along with that? You had to jump in head first?

Jacob Graham (JG): Well, we just never expected anything like this to happen. When we started the band, our only intention was to write songs and record music that we thought was really selfish and self-indulgent. We didn’t think anyone would like it except for us and our only hope was really to try to convince some indie label to release a 7” of it or something. But when all this started happening, it’s like there’s nothing you can really do other than grab on and try not to fall off the horse – the proverbial horse.

You say that when you started The Drums you guys were kind of being selfish, was that because the pair of you had both been in bands before – you had kind of been there, done that and tried it the hard way — then you kind of thought with The Drums were kind of pleasing yourselves more, first and foremost.

JG: It’s very easy when you’re in a band to kind of think, like, “I wonder what other people are going to think about this”. Or if you’re around a lot of other bands to maybe mesh in with what everyone else is doing. When we started the band, I was living in Florida and Johnny was living in Brooklyn and I said, “You should move to Florida so we can start this band, record songs ‘cause there’s just too much going on in Brooklyn.” You can’t fail to be influenced when you’re so immersed in all of that. So our intention was just to make music to please ourselves.

I thought it might have been the move to New York that kind of spurred the band on. Was it the reverse thing? You had to get away from what was sort of happening around you.

JP: I took off and went to Florida. We started writing songs immediately. Then after we had a handful of songs written we realised that we had something very special – we thought they were special. We were living in the middle of nowhere in Florida, and there was nowhere to really play. So we decided to just move to New York. That said, we never thought anything would happen in New York but at least there were some places we could play shows and maybe some people would like what we were doing. Immediately just after our very first concert things snowballed. And before we knew it, we were touring the world. It’s really just been a crazy thing.

I mean, the bands that both you guys have been in were kind of more glossy or sort of synth-pop right? Like you kind of had to uncomplicate yourselves a bit for The Drums?

JG: Kind of. We’ve both been playing synthesizers since we were kids and we were always obsessed with synthesizers and just in that mindset of wanting to sound like OMD or the Pet Shop Boys or something like that. After having played synthesizers so long, when we started this band, the very first song we did we started doing it on synthesizers and we just looked at each other and we’re just like, “This has become so redundant, and so monotonous” and my little brother had a guitar in the corner and it seemed really exotic to us. We felt like aliens trying to play the guitar and we didn’t know how to play it but we had this sound in our head.

Do you think it was almost like finding a more modest sound or something kind of, with this band, Connor?

Connor: I don’t know if modest is the word I would use. Maybe it could come across as modest because it’s sort of sparse, but I’d say more minimal or humble because the sound of this band relies on the idea of removing anything extraneous. More simplistic than the current tide of music right now, which has a lot to do with adding and adding and getting more and more indulgent until you’re the next big thing. But this band was kind of the opposite, just strip it down to exactly what you want.

Johnny, is there a bit of a math equation as well? I mean, you said you took yourselves away from New York to not be around other bands. Did you also have to look for a set of reference points that other people aren’t necessarily into as well. I mean, I haven’t heard too many bands apart from The Drums to name check English group The Wake and give them props.

JP: Our idea when we started writing songs was just to stop listening to modern music pretty much all together. We just started listening to the bands and the songs that we listened to when we were kids and teenagers, bands like The Wake and bands like Orange Juice…

Were you really that cool a teenager? Were you listening to Orange Juice at age 12?

JP: Well Jake and I met over the love of Kraftwerk and we were like 12 and 13. We were really into collecting Human League vinyls and stuff like that. It’s very weird how we met; it was a one in a million chance meeting.

Make it perfect. Tell me it was in a record shop now, Jacob.

JG: It wasn’t. It was actually at summer camp where both of our parents had shipped us to. We were the sort of kids that were out of place, everyone was playing sports and stuff and we were running away, listening to CDs. It was really a once-in-a-lifetime thing because we met each other and both of us were into Kraftwerk and The Smiths, and stuff like that. When you live in middle America you never think you’re going to meet anyone your age that likes this music. Everyone tells you you’re stupid and you’re out of your mind. So then when you meet someone who actually shares the same tastes, it’s almost life-changing. I think the day we met we said “We have to start a band together.” But of course we couldn’t because…

…You were still 12.

JG: Exactly. We always thought The Drums sort of started then. But we didn’t write our first song until a year and a half ago.

Were you aware of constructing a certain sound on the album? There’s stuff like the guitar on “Book of Stories” or even the whistling on “Let’s Go Surfing”. Where you quite aware of the elements that go into The Drums?

JG: I mean a Drums song has a lot of rules to it. I think the first few songs that were written in Florida sort of set up a structure to the point where now, when we talk about the second album, it’s almost becoming a process where we can come up with an idea and put it on a conveyor belt. We can sit down and put this idea on the conveyor belt and press “Go!”

I hope it’s not going to be quite as clinical as that though.

JP: What really fascinates us is the fundamentals of how pop songs are made. So we definitely put rules on ourselves and it’s the same rules for every song. It becomes very methodical. So saying it sounds like it’s coming out of a factory, or a conveyor belt, well in a way it is because we have the exact same structure for every song that we make. Those rules were formed when Phil Spector was doing his thing. He pulled those rules out of thin air and just said “this is the pop song, this is it. This is the hit. This is what you’ll hear on the radio” and that’s a really fascinating idea. Since I was very young, I have always loved that. It could be Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” or it could be a song by a-ha or it could be a song by Orange Juice or it could be The Shangri-Las. Era, location, genre, they’re all very secondary to us. It’s about the pop song. It’s about the song that’s underneath everything.

I like the fact you’re already thinking about album number two, I hope you can get some time to make it in the next twelve months.

JP: Here’s to hoping. So far we haven’t had a day or even a few hours to actually do something. When we’re on the road we like to talk about what we want to do. We have ideas and we have a pretty strong vision of what we want to do but finding the time is crucial. It seems impossible right now!

First broadcast on Static on 05/08/10. Static can be heard on Sydney’s 2SER (107.3 FM) and via the Internet (www.2ser.com) every Thursday evening (AEST).

The end of winter and onset of spring then summer in the Southern Hemisphere means one thing. Well it means warmer temperatures obviously but it also means more international tours for us antipodeans starved of name acts over the winter months (yes Splendour and its sideshows, we know you were an exception). A number of big names have been announced in the past week so let’s first put our Britpop band t-shirts back on (if we can fit into them) for two of that era’s seminal UK acts who are touring within days of each other.

The Charlatans who Webcuts last caught up with in Barcelona running through their 20 year old debut album Some Friendly, Don’t Look Back style, will be in our cities for a more rounded set to support their new album Who We Touch, their 11th, out September 17th through Shock.

• 10 Nov (Wed) – Brisbane – Hi-Fi
• 11 Nov (Thu) – Sydney – Metro
• 12 Nov (Fri) -  Melbourne – Billboard
• 13 Nov (Sat) – Adelaide – Fowlers Live
• 15 Nov (Mon) – Fremantle – Metropolis

Tickets on sale 20th August through www.custommade.com.au

The Manic Street Preachers will be trailing them closely in support of their 10th studio album Postcards From a Young Man, (Sept 24, Sony) which follows the release of last year’s Journal for Plague Lovers which featured lyrics from the still fondly remembered, but still missing, Richey Edwards.

• 13 Nov (Sat) – Brisbane – Hi-Fi
• 15 Nov (Mon) – Sydney – Metro
• 18 Nov (Thu) – Adelaide – HQ
• 20 Nov (Sat) – Melbourne – Forum
• 22 Nov (Mon) – Fremantle – Metropolis

Tickets on sale 18 August through the venues or ticketek

We last told you about the Blonde Concretes, er, Concrete Blonde, who are celebrating 20 years (and I remember it quite well, yes I’m old) since the release of Bloodletting which spawned the mega-hit “Joey” back in April. Well the bloodletting will continue in Australia in October (ha! Take that London Webcuts staff).

• 19 Oct (Tues) – Brisbane – Hi-Fi
• 21 Oct (Thu) – Sydney – Enmore Theatre
• 22 Oct (Fri) – Melbourne – Palace
• 23 Oct (Sat) – Perth – Astor

Tickets: Ticketmaster, Hi-Fi on sale now.

The big news (although further afield) was The Falls/Southbound/Sunset Sounds festivals announcement. The acts that have got Webcuts excited are The National who have never failed to disappoint us live and their High Violet record of this year was wholeheartedly welcomed by all and sundry, Interpol who have us shaking in suspense for their fourth self titled album in September (through Matador/Shock), and The Morning Benders whose third album came out of nowhere to charm our socks off. Add to that the likes of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Public Enemy (playing Fear of a Black Planet), Paul Kelly (especially after his solid Splendour performance), Cloud Control, Hot Hot Heat, Peaches (DJ) and The Soft Pack (who, truth be told, we weren’t sold on their debut album, but will be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt live) and you’ve got the makings of another sensational bunch of festivals.

The Falls

• Dec 28 2010-Jan 1 2011, Lorne, Victoria
• Dec 29 2010-Jan 1 2011, Marion Bay, Tasmania

Southbound

• Jan 1-3 2011, Sir Stewart Bovell Park, Busselton, WA

Sunset Sounds

• January 4-5 2011 – Riverstage, Brisbane

Mark Kozelek
Union Chapel, London
29th July, 2010

“Give me a minute and I’ll blow your minds“. The crowd laughs, so does the man who just uttered those words. The mood, somewhat quiet, respectful, shiftless, is lightened, and he begins another master-class in tinkling the nylon strings of his Spanish guitar like Liberace would the piano. “I’m old” he breaks the silence again, “I’m fat, I need water, I need lyrics to my songs”. From my pew to the right side of the stage I have to squint to see if it’s not Neil Young sitting there complaining about his arthritis. To Kozelek’s credit, he’s still as ageless as ever, and that gut you were grabbing at? I’m pretty sure you’ve been carrying that for a while now.

Kozelek’s playing style has morphed from a simple six steel string strum to a more delicate, finger-picked style played on a nylon-stringed Spanish guitar in which his latest album under the Sun Kil Moon moniker Admiral Fell Promises is given over entirely to and for the entire set doesn’t leave his grip. Old Red House Painter tunes like the breath-taking “Katy Song” and “Void” have be remodeled to fit this new style, now intensely, carefully, with sudden dalliances up and down the fretboard, revealing a new side to Kozelek, one that is almost focused solely on the guitar. Long passages of songs begin in that string rumbling style, skipping along, repeating phrases of notes, building momentum.

Those unfamiliar with Admiral Fell Promises would’ve been found wanting with Kozelek’s predilection for new material, playing seven out of the ten songs in the course of the night, only briefly wandering off-course to treat us with Ghost of The Highway fave “Carry Me Ohio” and “Duk Koo Kim”. His attempt at banter often fell flat — berating someone in the crowd who asked (I believe) about guitar tabs, telling the assembled to do away with their facebook pages and websites and to essentially get a life. But that’s Mark Kozelek and you have to sympathise to a degree how to manage the awkward silences between having to change guitar tunings with every song. It sounds like he came with his patter prepared, almost in the way he flubs his own lines.

The new songs, muck like Kozelek’s previous album April, belay a certain sense of ‘memorable-ness’, of a chorus or something within the song that the listener can grip on tightly to and anticipate its return. There’s little deviation in style and Kozelek has almost become as predictable as a songwriter as he is with his stage banter. His performance at the Union Chapel was near flawless which perhaps was the main problem — Kozelek is just too good at what he does. But for the last song of the night, Kozelek, rewarding the audience with a live untested version of Admiral Fell Promises “Bay of Skulls”, showed he was human after all, becoming so entranced with getting a section of the song perfect that after three attempts, his amusement growing with each failure, he put down his guitar and acceded defeat to a round of applause.

Has there ever been a band that promised so much, but delivered so little? I know with an opening statement like that I may as well tell them that their girlfriends/wives are ugly too and be done with it, but once upon a time The Walkmen had their eyes on the prize, but instead decided to move to Tijuana and play like drunk, heartbroken Americanos. To give them credit, they do this really well. But after five albums, the soft introspective “why you done gone and left me?” feel that carried through A Hundred Miles Off and You & Me gets a little too familiar. Lisbon, what have you for The Walkmen? What have you for us?

Never trust a press release written by a record company, no matter how cool they are. They’re full of lies and half-truths and only occasionally informative. What they’ve heard but we haven’t is the album, that’s their ace in the hole, and it’s up to you to call their bluff, to sift through the hyperbole till you get the pure, undiluted truth. Luckily for The Walkmen, it isn’t all record company shill-in-effect, and the boys are roped in for some comments on the album. For those who haven’t had a chance to hear a track from the album, go here. I have to say, same old, same old, boys. But fingers crossed this is just the gateway leaving You & Me and entering a bright and wonderful new place, Lisbon.

If The Walkmen have got anything right, it’s on a track titled “Victory”, in which front man Hamilton Leithauser sings “Victory, right beside me / Victory, should be mine”. I have to agree. Platitudes for this band shouldn’t come with such hesitancy… Due for release October 4 in the UK on Bella Union, Lisbon comes out three weeks earlier in the US and Australia, via Fat Possum (through Shock in Aus), on September 14.

And now the press release reads as follows…

Formed in 2002 by members of celebrated indie rock bands Jonathan Fire*Eater and The Recoys, The Walkmen burst through New York City’s crowded garage rock scene with their debut album Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone. Recorded in the band’s analogue Harlem studio, Marcata Recording, the album captured public and critical attention for its freshness, use of atmosphere, and vintage instrumentation. Where the debut focused on restraint and sonic exploration, the band’s highly anticipated follow-up Bows & Arrows tightened their sound and reached for grandeur. It would spawn indie rock anthem “The Rat” and inspire numerous young bands to cut their hair, button up oxford shirts, and ditch their converse. Two albums followed including 2006’s A Hundred Miles Off and the band’s song-by-song cover of Harry Nilsson and John Lennon’s 1974 classic Pussy Cats. The former polarized fans and critics while the latter served as a last-call to Marcata Recordings – relinquished that year in a Columbia University land grab.

Two years followed. Band members relocated to Philadelphia resulting in countless rides between cities on Chinatown buses. During this time guitarist Paul Maroon taught himself the viola and trumpet leading to a sonic breakthrough. The cold and standoffish tone run aground in recent years was abandoned for a warmer, more personal, and real approach. Heralded as a return to form, 2008’s You & Me catapulted the band back into the limelight landing on countless year-end “best of lists” including NPR, Pitchfork, Paste, Stereogum, Time Out NYC, among others. The album received five stars from English daily The Guardian who described the album as “intimate, intense and beautiful,” while Pitchfork called it “the sound they’ve reached for since the beginning.”

How do you follow an album as groundbreaking and heartbreaking as You & Me? The band spent two years driving between warehouses on Philadelphia’s Girard Avenue and Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal where they would write the majority of Lisbon. It wasn’t until a few inspiring trips to Lisbon, Portugal however that they established the album’s tone. “None of us had ever been there, and we were really blown away by the place,” says Leithauser. “The topography and architecture are stunningly handsome. It was a trip that outshone a lot of others. We’ve never had much luck in Europe, and the Portuguese were surprisingly accommodating. I think those two trips really helped keep us motivated while making this record. We named the record Lisbon as sort of a ‘thank you’ and a small tribute.” Adds Leithauser, “early on, we had a whole batch of songs based on this New Orleans-style horn playing that (guitarist) Paul (Maroon) was working on. The track ‘Stranded’ is the only one that actually ended up making the album though. I think it was maybe the second song we wrote for Lisbon, so it sort of exemplifies our sound from two years ago.”

In fact, the band recorded around twenty-five songs for the album, soldiering through many disparate phases. “At one point, I thought we were making a country record,” says bassist Walter Martin. “There was another period where most of what was happening were these very simple songs with just delay, quiet guitar, and singing,” adds organist Peter Bauer. The end result draws from each phase. The simple sounds remain drawing from early Elvis and Sun Records for inspiration while the heart of the album adds fast bashy drums, subtle vocal harmonies, and galloping guitar lines. “We had all these moments but really struggled to find the sound that set it apart,” says Bauer. Standout tracks “Woe Is Me” and single “Angela Surf City” made it through several permutations before finding their way back to the wild primitive tone of their original 8 track recordings. These are real barnburners. Set beside left field moments like the Sinatra-esque “While I Shovel The Snow” and the album’s epic closer and title track, Lisbon is the band’s most coherent work to date. “Everything on this record was a real surprise for us,” says Bauer. “And that’s all we ever set out to do.”

Tracklisting:

1. Juveniles
2. Angela Surf City
3. Follow The Leader
4. Blue As Your Blood
5. Stranded
6. Victory
7. All My Great Designs
8. Woe Is Me
9. Torch Song
10. While I Shovel The Snow
11. Lisbon

Ugh. There was a part of me that was really rooting for Kele Okereke’s solo debut to succeed, but only because I missed Bloc Party; the same way another part of me was rooting for Julian Casablancas’ solo album to do well, because I missed The Strokes. And otherwise, their stories were awfully similar. Young, fresh-faced band, too-cool-for-school, with a stellar, historically-good debut. Follow-up album that was almost as good as the first, because it stuck to the basic elements that made the debut so good. A third record that fell off the wagon to varying degrees (in the case of The Strokes, a bit; in the case of Bloc Party, quite a bit).

And then the brooding moment when the bands were, suddenly and dramatically, on a “break”. Fans yearned for more, blogs spouted break-ups and solo band member album rumors, and finally the leads of both produce their own solitary albums. Which is where the tales diverge. Casablancas made a record rooted in his past work that also introduced something neoteric, while Okereke seemed to disregard everything that made Bloc Party so good, even simple stuff like melody and emotive resonance.

This is, unfortunately, all but neglected; obvious from the opening strains of the album in the form of repetitious lyrics, drilled out bass lines, and dance hall hand-claps, that clearly those searching for the sort of windows-down, shout-it-to-the-world power rock songs of early Bloc Party should look elsewhere. It’s hard to separate the onslaught of press over Kele’s recently revealed sexual preference from the album as well, both with the musical choices as well as pervasive themes. “I don’t know what you’ve been told/But this starts now, walk tall walk tall,” may be speaking to this, and over glitzy, discotheque beats even the most unsuspecting listeners may have that reaction drawn out of them. It’s discouraging to have this feel cheapened, that an otherwise courageous statement about one’s self be reduced to media frenzy, banal music and tired lyrics, but, there it is.

Tonally, not much changes after this either. Club beats and minimal ideas, rinse and repeat. “Tenderoni” is the first single off the album, and would be an outstanding song for a Gap Outlet store or a racing video game. It’s honestly about as good as it gets, there’s not that much diversity elsewhere. Even one of the more poignant lines from the record, “I used to want to rule the world/But now I just get by,” is lost in a non-existent melody and the tinkling of a keyboard on “The New Rules”.

If this really is the future of Kele and/or Bloc Party, count me out. I love the fact that Kele was brash enough to delve directly into unapologetic pop music, but I’m also kind of shocked he didn’t bring any of his early songwriting skills with him. Brilliant debuts like Silent Alarm aren’t fluky, and I have to believe we could see more music like that in the future. But this ain’t it.

The last time we spoke to Montreal’s Stars, they were shining bright on their first visit to Australia on the back of their fourth record, In Your Bedroom After the War. Skip forward two and a half years later and the band have released their fifth LP onto the world The Five Ghosts. Whereas In Your Bedroom… was all epic melodrama and bombast The Five Ghosts, under the helm of producer Tom McFall — who has worked with Jacknife Lee, Editors, Coldplay and soon Weezer — is a more focused and streamlined record that in some ways harks back to their synth-pop roots of their first album Nightsongs albeit darker in tone and theme.

While Stars’ diminutive front-man with a larger than life personality Torquil Campbell, and its glamorous front-woman with a nice sideline in alt.country records Amy Millan, may get the most of the star light we recently had words with the quiet achiever of the band, Evan Cranley. Ostensibly the band’s bassist he also plays guitar, trombone and recently synthesiser who, along with keyboardist Chris Segliman, is the main composer of the music for the band. Evan reveals to us details about the process and direction that the new album took, the decision behind the Séance EP, his jack of all trades role in the band, the novel approach to touring the new songs and how to create a fantastic remix.

You said in a recent interview that Tom McFall was such an integral part of making the album he was like a sixth member, and the The Five Ghosts “making of” videos certainly bears that out. Was his method of producing the new album different to the approach he used on Set Yourself on Fire?

Yeah it was. I think we gave Tom McFall carte blanche this time and he acted as this amazing musical filter. For a group like ours which lives together, fights together and makes all these records together it’s important to have that kind of perspective and that was kind of missing on our last record. He was great not just as an engineer but as someone who could take all of the ideas and make them one. He’s a really great musician, and not just a “producer”, and that was the strength to these sessions, he had the ability to say no or yes at the end of the day, and we were all fine with that. It’s important to let go a little bit at our stage. If we make another record he’ll be involved, we’re addicted to him now.

You recorded the album at Breakglass studios in Montreal whose client list boasts a lot of indie talent (Holy Fuck, Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Young Galaxy)? How was that experience, especially recording in the open plan “Live Room” as a unit?

The guy who runs it is Jace Lasek who’s in the band Besnard Lakes who we’re all huge fans of. He’s created this amazing studio that is really tactile and a not a daunting place to work. To lay down these bare tracks off the floor was new to us. It’s a completely different feel to the puzzle-piece records we’ve done before and to have Tom sitting in the chair as we’re doing rough takes and sometimes keeper takes was a lot like being in a scene in a film and having the director yell “cut” or “roll”. It was really great to have all the energies in one room.

The album is very focused on electronic instrumentation such as synthesisers, sequencers and drum machines. Whose idea was that — yours or Tom’s or both?

Well we told Tom we wanted to push the synthesis, knowing it’s one of his strong points — he was in a band with his brother called Serial P.O.P. who did a lot of synth work. We had all these rough demo tunes and we knew we wanted to push the synths and we were mailing him demos and when we got to the studio we would rent and buy this gear we were unfamiliar with. He helped us to really flesh out, sonically, the best of those vintage synth tones and drum machines.

Was the move towards synths a reaction to the epic scope of your last album?

I know I wanted to leave that last record behind on every level. It was great for the time but it was a record that had to get made for the band – the band had to make it, the band had to produce it. Whereas this record we just wanted to make the best record possible with an outside prospectus. I think it’s a natural process that your sound slightly changes and you challenge yourself in different ways that you hadn’t before. Especially as a band on your fifth record it’s important to get your sound into unfamiliar territory and there can be limitations with that but that can inspire you to try things you haven’t done before.

That very much applies to the bass on the new album. Your bass lines on In Your Bedroom… were very prominent but on the new disc at least half of the songs feature bass synthesizer.

To make the drums and bass very synth heavy was totally conscious. I wanted to play an instrument that I was totally unfamiliar with and to have a different sonic palette.

What do you get out of playing bass synth as opposed to electric bass?

It’s colder. You’re almost removed from it a little bit more. You can tweak parameters like oscillation and synthesis. It’s funny because when we were writing the music I’d write a lot on synth and I felt like I influenced the way other people approached the tunes, almost unconsciously  I play a lot of synth live, to reproduce the record, which is fun. I go between keyboard, guitar and bass, which brings a different character to the live show.

You’ve always been multi-skilled instrument wise you’ve never been just the “bass guy”?

No! I’m the primary guitar player on all the records and I like to write on guitar. Trombone’s my first instrument and I play it with other bands and do session work with that. The band gives me freedom to play whatever I want and that keeps me interested. I can’t just stay behind one instrument and write a whole record or tour a whole record — I just don’t have the attention span.

Although there’s not a lot of trombone on the new album is there?

No that was pretty conscious. There are only strings on two tunes and brass at the ending of one other. I didn’t want to make an ornamental record; I wanted to make it colder, closer and darker this time.

Obviously you’re more involved with the music and Amy and Torq write the lyrics but do you have an idea about the lyrical themes of the album?

Absolutely. Even though I don’t write the lyrics I try to juxtapose them with interesting music and compliment them with interesting arrangements. Without giving too much away there were some people in the band that lost some loved ones and there was a lot of spiritual growth that happened. There were a lot of personal experiences which related to the lyrical content.

I really like the Séance EP (available with certain versions of the album) which goes down the electronic path to a greater degree still. How did you decide that these four tracks would form their own separate entity?

It was a pretty interesting decision, because these were all b-sides that we wrote for the record  but were a little uninteresting in certain ways. We thought we could use them as an EP or throw them away, or have them completely re-interpreted, which is what we did. We gave each of these b-sides to an artist we really liked — Tom McFall, The Album Leaf, of Montreal and Montag – who completely re-curated them. It was really exciting to hear the mixes come back and get a different take on them.

Will we ever hear the original versions?

I don’t know. They still need to be mixed from the actual sessions. I think perhaps down the road, it’s always something we could release…

…on that Stars box set perhaps?

Who buys box sets anymore? Jeez! But that would be cool. The thing about putting a record out nowadays is you have to be so creative and package them with b-sides, remixes and artwork. I love it because it’s another creative avenue but you can’t just put out a ten song record because with all the records out there you need to make yours as special as possible. It’s a little frustrating because the mystery gets taken out of it. You can watch people in the studio; you can hear every cut they’ve ever done.

Everything’s bootlegged and on YouTube half an hour after the show.

It’s crazy man. You’ve got to be conscious of what type of pants you’re wearing all the time!

You’ve got a full slate for the rest of the year playing North America and Europe and you’ve started this tour off with a novel concept: playing the new album in its entirety, then fan selected tracks for the encores. How has this been working out for both you and your audiences?

I know I can speak for everyone when I say it’s the most fulfilling Stars tour that the band’s ever done. It was great to see people’s reaction in the first two months because we were playing an album people hadn’t heard. We were essentially leaking it live on stage to fans who had bought tickets with the record. Both of you are walking on this weird platform where you don’t know what this is exactly and they don’t know how to react to it. For the second set we’d have this online poll, depending on the city, where people could vote on which songs they wished to hear that night. So the shows were almost curated by the fans in that town. It’s something I would love to do in Australia when we come over. And to preempt your next question we’re aiming for March 2011!

REMIXING 101 – A HOW TO BY EVAN CRANLEY

Stars are offering fans a chance to remix forthcoming single “We Don’t Want Your Body” via MXP4. I asked Evan what he considered would make a good remix. I think to make it as obtuse and difficult as possible while still trying to keep the integrity and balance of the song, like any good remix. I know with the stems you’re not given that much to work with but you can add whatever you want. You could sample a bunch of orchestration or sample a five piece jazz combo and put it together with some of our tracks. I’d be really excited to hear something like that, like take some tabla and maybe just tabla and voice. Put it on top of its head but the same time still make it a good song.