The Flaming Lips have finally put their latest album, “The King’s Mouth,” on larger release and streaming services. This follows on from its limited edition vinyl run on record store day.
Although they have dabbled with concept albums on a more generalised thematic level up to now, “The Kings Mouth” is the first direct concept album with lyrics and spoken word elements mixing with the music. It tells an odd fairy tale that could only come from front man Wayne Coynes head.
The album returns to the whimsy, and even features some sound elements of their album “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots.” This moves away from the darker trajectory of the past couple of albums. Its a sound that The Flaming Lips and their producer Dave Fridmann have perfected over the years, and suits the albums narrative well.
The large, digital orchestration of samplers and synthesizers create a world that is bathed in optimism. Every cloud, no matter how big and dark, has a silver lining. This leads to a playful album, full of great songs and psych rock instrumentals.
For an individual track “how many times” is a great place to start. It balances the fine line between playfulness and jollity without sounding too saccharin and twee. It is a skill very few bands achieve and The Flaming Lips are masters of. Consider this track an aperitif to an album that’s well worth your time:
This week I’d like to turn my attention more to a television series than a piece of music. That’s because Neon Genesis Evangelion – probably my favorite television show of all time – is now available on Netflix.
I first watched this series and the film “End of Evangelion” in my mid teens. Back then, Anime in the UK was a niche hobby that was a difficult pursuit for a teen. It was hugely expensive, A handful of episodes would cost between £20-£30 on DVD. A full series could cost months of your part time wages, and even then, you could end up with poorly dubbed/subbed shows. This is before you even start to look at the quality of the show itself.
I came to Evangelion with little knowledge about the series other then it was a massive hit in Japan and had robots in it. I bought the box set and watched it over the course of a few days.
I remember watching the first half of the series and enjoying parts of the show but not really seeing the reason for its success in Japan. But then late one Friday evening I started the second half of the series. As the tension builds and the story line goes into a more philosophical bent, I became enraptured in a way I had never done before with a TV show. After binge watching the last 15 episodes the series left me confused and deflated with more questions then answers. Fortunately I had the solution in the film ‘end of Evangelion’ and, even thought it was nearing 1am and I was already exhausted, I decided that I had to know what happened next.
What happened next was a psychological battering from one of the hardest and yet rewarding films I’ve ever seen. In my weaker half asleep state ‘End of Evengelion’ was a psychedelic, hypnotic and then transcendent experience, which answers some of the questions I had whilst leaving me with many more. I left that night fundamentally changed. I’m not sure how, but I knew I saw the world differently.
Since then, I have been a fan of Evangelion in the same way a missionary is a fan of their religious text. Over the years, I have cherished this work and protected it; recommending and even lending it to like minded individuals to find out their response to the show. These would always be different and revealing as they picked up subtexts within the show that I hadn’t, expanding my own understanding.
Now for the first time ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ is available to watch easily via Netflix. This allows a show that was hard to obtain, to be watched by anyone who has a Netflix account. I would highly recommend it but with the caveat that this show is not an easy watch. It deals with subject matters that often feel traumatic to the viewer and has a plot that is hard to decipher and often abstract. But, if your willing to go through it you will be rewarded with a highly unique show that will challenge you at the very least, and it may even have the lasting affect it has on me.
The show has many highlights and the music is no exception, It blends with the show flawlessly. Providing bombast when needed, and subtlety in quieter moments. The track Rei 1 builds orchestral instrumentation around an initial piano piece, creating a wistful, romantic and slightly sinister track that works perfectly with the character and the show in general:
Sharon Van Etten’s album “Remind Me Tomorrow” is quickly becoming a highlight for the year. The tracks manage to be both versatile and have a collective vision and direction that works well as a whole.
The album opens with “I Told You Everything.” This is a slow, minimalist track with lots of low end and plenty of mood. The sparse lyrics depict a meeting between two people and, although the subject matter seems pretty normal, the weight that Sharon Van Etten adds to them indicates they are something far greater; the minutia of life that with hindsight often becomes the most important.
As the track slowly develops, it envelops you in its dark soundscapes. These continue throughout the album. It is a soft introduction to a journey that is well worth taking. “I Told You Everything” is a great start to an album that’s more than worth your time:
Max Cooper’s remixes of the Olafur Arnald tracks “partial” and “ypsilon” unearth and enhance the percussive, electronic drive of the two tracks. A sound that was only hinted at it in the original versions, on Olafur Arnald’s album “re:member.”
The partial remix is true techno with repetitive driving drums taking over the piece, whilst the melody of the original piece slowly develops, oozing its way through the cracks in the track’s percussion.
Alternatively, the ypsilon remix gives more space to the melodic elements of the original track. They open and drive the piece, whilst the percussion shuffles its way around them, seemingly shunning the limelight.
Both tracks provide a fresh take on the originals, and show the strengths of both acts; specifically Olafur Arnald’s abilities in expert sound design and Max Cooper’s percussive prowess:
It’s been a while since I last went to Glastonbury but, with the great BBC television coverage we get in the UK, I manged to watch many of the performances.
Out of these performances, IDLES really stood out with their message and energy. It made me come back to their first two album’s. I mustn’t have given them the attention they deserved when they came out, as they should have been considered – if not made – my albums of the year lists.
It would be easy to categorise IDLES as a modern take on “punk,” and I do agree that their songs feature many sounds that you would hear in that style of music. Their lyrics are angrily delivered and often politically pointed, which reminds me of the original punk movement.
But just like many of those original bands, punk was more a method of delivery than a genre. Many people would say The Clash are a punk band, and yet they have many songs that would be far better categorised as ska, dub, regge or rockabilly. Idles are the same; pushing their sound into into heavier and more progressive genre of music.
Idles have managed to create a music that resonates broadly in the world today, providing progressive messages of love and hope that are delivered in an antagonistic and rabble rousing way. It’s a sound that they deliver live with a raw energy that few bands achieve, and it can be seen even through the tiny screen of your mobile phone, or in the comfort of your home.
Below are several performances in case others get taken down and they’re all worth a watch along with one of my favorite tracks from their second album I’m Scum:
There are times when a song just drifts it’s way our of your subconscious. A recurring memory from a time long forgotten. I remembered this track when drifting to sleep this week and its stuck in my head since.
Lady Eleanor by Lindisfarne dreamlike qualities suit how i remembered this track perfectly. Its opening seems to slowly materialise out of the ether.
Instruments add to each other and build to a series of crescendos with each verse that then fall into a silence the courses come crashing out of. The song ends with a complete change in theme as a bass line takes prominence and the track drifts back into obscurity.
The continuous, almost liquid like dynamics and tempo that have kept this track enchanting for me since I first heard it as a child. A fantastic piece of folk rock that keeps on giving me joy to this day:
The music of Nobuo Uematsu is loved by many the world over. Yet, I still believe he is massively underrated because the majority of his work is for video games; a medium that is still sidelined in many ways by the mainstream.
The quality of his work easily matches that of composers like John Williams and Ennio Morricone, and yet he gets comparatively little acknowledgement outside of the gaming world. I think this will change with time. As people who have grown up with video games become the people who control and dictate the direction of what “mainstream culture” is, the history of video games and their creators will become more respected and recognised for their artistic merits.
It’s hard for me to pick a favorite track from his work. This is, in part, due to the sheer scale of his achievement. The length and complexity of the RPG games requires the same of it’s soundtrack. Nobuo Uematsu did this to such a high standard that it is hard to highlight individual tracks. For me, his best work comes from the games Final Fantasy 7 through to 10 as the shift of the games from cartridge to CD and then DVD allowed for more complex compositions.
Due to budget and design constraints, most of the Final Fantasy soundtrack was made on synthesisers, which often emulate classical instruments. Still, Nobuo Uematsu was able to demonstrate his incredible ability to pull from the history of music, creating memorable and emotional melodies that have stuck with fans.
It is this fandom that has allowed many of the tracks from his more well known games to be scaled to full orchestral and piano arrangements, which add accessibility to people who haven’t heard the music before.
For my Track Of The Week I decided to go back to an original piece, straight from a game soundtrack. “Fisherman’s Horizon” from Final Fantasy 8 still resonates strongly with me. The track accompanies exploration of an area that closely resembles a coastal town. It manages to capture the gentle breeze and expansive ocean that surrounds the area perfectly. It demonstrates what makes the work of Nobuo Uematsu so great. A composition that works perfectly, both as a soundtrack for this section of game, and in its own right as a memorable and beautiful piece of music.
Another highlight from Hidden Door, Kelly Lee Owens set was well polished and full of a mix of different styles of electronic dance music.
“Bird” is my favorite track on her self titled album which starts with a drifting more ambient feeling with its synth and string pad sounds accompanying the percussive lead line. A couple of minutes in the pads are replaced with a deep bass line and more driving percussion that takes the track into a darker and more direct place.
Last weekend I attended Hidden Door, an arts and music festival in Edinburgh.
There were several musical highlights from the 4 days of music that I will bring to your attention over the next few weeks. The first was MIDI Paul who’s performance consisted of a live percussion, bass mixed with synthesis and the occasional vocalist.
The instrumental track Wandering demonstrates his qualities. Raw synthesis is at the forefront of the track but its constant melodic development keeps a sound that could easily become stale fresh and exiting.
It’s this skill in melody and rhythm that makes the piece work as it shifts around instrumentation. Creating a track that remains exiting and unexpected throughout its playtime:
This week I suddenly had a hunkering to listen to the first album by “The Go! Team” . Up to “Thunder, Lightning, Strike” touring “The Go! Team” were the production skills and creative vision of Ian Parton, who recorded most of this album at his parents home and mixed it with his brother Gareth Parton.
This is probably why “Thunder, Lightning, Strike” still stands as my favorite album by “The Go! Team”. It’s the purest form of the distilled vision of Ian Patron. A sound that mixes garage rock guitars with samples of old-school Hip-hop, double dutch chants and soundtracks to such great affect. It created a jolly and childlike world of positivity that reminds me more of shows like Sesame Street then other music.
Panther Dash is the opening track and presents the ideas and even some of the key samples that we hear throughout the album. A perfect introduction to a great album and a novel band that are well worth investigating:
Spotify:
TOTW Playlist:
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