Croll Of Honour

Today's hangover cure: an extra hour in bed, and some Stravinksy.

DAN CROLL/ PANAMA WEDDING, Communion/ Transmission, Bully, 11/10/14

Going to see new bands at the moment is like one long pub quiz.  It’s not so much that the music is retro – pop’s been retro since the second minute of its existence – it’s just the current reference points are such odd mid-80s choices that we spend most of our time amongst trendy, bopping audiences with furrowed brow, trying to dredge up names that have lain dormant in the grey cells for 25 years.  New York’s Panama Wedding, for example, with their cleanly emotive, breathy vocals and bleached funk keyboard stabs, are essentially Huey Lewis crossed with Brother Beyond.  Two tracks in, presented with a riff redolent of “Owner Of A Lonely Heart”, we’re gearing up to abhor them, but it turns out that good pop music, played by a band that’s impeccably rehearsed without dropping into cynical posturing, will always melt the hardest heart.  “Uma” might be more suited to a rom com miniature golf montage than the Bully, but essentially these guys are Hot Chip with the irony replaced by gosh-darned American pluck and, frankly, they’re just as good.

When they’re not spinning Now 7 for inspiration, hip young things are copping some tricks from African music, although Dan Croll has recorded in Durban with the mighty Ladysmith Black Mambazo, so he has clearly taken his influences more seriously than most.  But, ignoring a few high life licks, tonight’s set owes far more to smooth, mildly euphoric pop, somewhere between Black’s Moss Bros sophistication and The Beloved’s cultured Ibiza comedowns.  Croll’s voice might be a little thin and falsetto-happy, but he has an articulacy that lifts the songs beyond mere fluff.  Whilst our favourite tonight  is “Can You Hear Me?”, an improbably huge bass drum making it sound like MOP’s take on “Cold As Ice” without the hip-hop, and whilst the odd guitar wail or gratuitous Meatloaf drum fill sticks in our craw, Croll, like his support, reminds us that well-made pop, with an ear for a ripe melody, will never go out of style, regardless of fashion’s whims.

Rooster or Riding Hood?

It's been so long, it feels weird not to be pasting an Ocelot piece in the introduction.  Not sure whether I'll be replaced yet.  Anyway...

LITTLE RED – STICKS & STONES (All Will Be Well Records)

Whilst it might be common practice to rely on first impressions in the arenas of job interviews, speed dating and general elections, we reviewers are supposed to look more closely, to sift the full evidence objectively before drawing a conclusion.  Pity, really, because it means that we judge this album by local trio Little Red to be a pleasant bundle of contemporary folk, when our hearts are still alight from the opening track, that made us sit up and take notice like nothing else on the record.

Said tune, “What Say You” is just charming.  From a clean finger-picked guitar figure, that has a whiff of the cosy, unflurried ‘70s library music style that Trunk Records christened Fuzzy Felt Folk, closely entwined male and female vocals bob on a charming little melody, like a toy boat on a choppy duckpond.   It sounds limpidly lovely, but like so many great folk tunes, the jaunty music hides a black heart, the lyrics telling of betrayal, disappointment and visceral knife crime.  There is a wonderful moment where the guitar drops out to let the vocals declaim the chorus unaccompanied, that structurally seems to owe more to club bangers than any folk tradition, and in all, the song is a micro-epic, hinting at a full and macabre tale in its 1’48” running time.

It would be unfair to criticise the remaining 8 tracks too harshly, but none of them can challenge this jewel of an opener.  There are plenty of sweet, sugary harmonies in the vein of Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, and songs like “The Garden” recall our very own August List, albeit lacking in the bite that they would bring.  “Bonnie And Clyde” typifies the record, a beautifully put together little tune, right enough, but perhaps a touch too smooth, and with a “you and me against the world, babe” theme that is hackneyed and shopworn. 

In the future, we’d like them to either build on the wide-angled sounds of “Petal” or “Bonnie & Clyde” and make a giant, unashamed Clannad meets Fleetwood Mac studio confection, or alternatively to strip things down, get some dirt in the gears, and grind out something deeper and darker.  For now, this is an assured debut, with plenty to recommend it, but prettiness and poise might not bring out the best in Little Red – we’d like them to be rather less Little, and a much richer, bloodier Red.