Did you ever like a band so much you forgot to listen to
them? Find an act’s output so reliably
entertaining that your mind just files them squarely under Good then moves on
to worrying about other things? I had
that recently when I went to see the album launch by the excellent Jess Hall
and found The Family Machine playing support – suddenly I realised how long it
had been since I had watched the band, or spun their album. Admittedly, they don’t play hundreds of gigs,
and aren’t the county’s foremost proponents of self-promotion, but it’s still
odd that I found myself surprised all over again by how good they sound;
anyway, their up at the crack of noon laissez faire ambiance is one of the things
I like about watching them, in a world where so many performers seem to be in a
constant froth of hyperbole, onstage or online.
If you don’t know the band, they play a sort of subtle
country pop with stoned grins and glistening electronic edges, whilst smuggling
dark, serrated lyrics into our minds in the diplomatic bag of hummable
melodies. Admittedly, their most recent
material might not have the immediacy of their older work, but it still washes
over the ear gloriously, and “Quiet As A Mouse” might be their best track, a
floating autumn leaf of a tune, buoyed up
by the limpid vocals of We Aeronauts’ Anna – and, in true Family Machine form,
it’s a cutesy stalker tale, half True
Crime, half Beatrix Potter. Why not
be won over by a machine of loving grace?
FOCI’S LEFT – LIFE IN A LESS SOUTHERN TOWN (Omni Music)
There are two sorts of ambient music. One gets you relaxed, and one makes you
uneasy; one’s a warm duvet and one’s a chill breeze; one’s a forgiving hug, and
one’s a suspicious glance. Although the
second album by Oxford musician Mick Buckingham covers both ambient strains,
it’s definitely better when leaning towards the latter. The most satisfying element of this record is
its density – where many ambient composers are happy to let things run,
Buckingham has created a CD of real sonic depth, with a lush textural variety, from the pitched-up honks at the
opening (that remind us of “Galleons Of Stone” by The Art Of Noise) to “In Our
Lives, There Have Been Many Terrors”, in which distant metallic clanks are
borne on zephyrs through crumbling ruins.
Occasionally the sounds are just too well worn, and the ear can’t help
but associate echoey piano with lachrymose US soaps, and sawtooth synth hums
with encroaching Silurians, but in general this is a well-constructed
thoughtful slice of musical atmospherica.
Perhaps “Transistory Stringency” – yes, the titles are best ignored,
frankly – is thin and meandering, but overall this record marries the
amicable bubbling of early Global Communication with the elegant austerity of
Tim Hecker or Leyland Kirby. The record
ends with some unexpected drum n bass action, and if the breakbeat tweaking is
a little ham-fisted, the mournful Aphex horns underneath embody the record’s
true, dark heart. Good stuff, in short,
but more misery next time, please, Mick; perhaps we should have written a bad
review, to get the ball rolling.
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