Dropper's Delight

A fun one. Russ reviewed my choice of Scott Walker's The Drift, which he didn't enjoy but did respect.  I reviewed his choice of The Pipetes, and I...well, read on...

THE PIPETTES – WE ARE THE PIPETTES, Memphis Industries 

Russell and I have decided to review each other’s alums this issue. Please do not search for a reason. We are merely seeking to stave off the ennui of existence. That means I’m reviewing an album I’ve never heard, though the act name rang a bell. It’s a good name, isn’t it? Conjuring 60s girl groups and Spector-stable teenpop, but also sounding like a band made up of science teachers (reminds me that I’ve always thought that a great name for a band of off-duty middle managers is The Lanyards). The sound matches the name, being plasticky B-52s neo-trash garage with a girly punk edge - think “Shampoo are in the sixth form now”. The opening pairing of ‘We Are The Pipettes’ and ‘Pull Shapes’ is winning and frothy, and ‘Why Did You Stay?’ adds a little more substance, with grown-up strings, some vintage Cliff guitar and a few ‘Leader of the Pack’ backing vocals. ‘Dirty Mind’ is a little generic, though, and most notable for threatening to go into Maxine Nightingale’s ‘Right Back Where We Started From’. 

‘Judy’ is a highlight, a mid-80s Shakin’ Stevens song with some Grange Hill lyrics. It’s not a huge step away from Pulp, with the lyrics retelling a kitchen-sink microdrama. However there are a couple of tracks like ‘A Winter’s Sky’ on the album that are kind of forgettable; the trouble with pasticheing these 60s girl groups is that they usually had absolutely smoking vocals, whereas The Pipettes, for all their charm, are more Bananarama than The Supremes when it comes to vocal chops. And this means the tunes have to be top notch to stand out, whereas ‘Tell Me What You Want’s is merely fine, sounding like a late-80s Phil Collins number (it’s those strings) I’d much rather have the ‘Hey, Mickey’ steal that is ‘Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me’ any day. 

I’m listening on YouTube, which is not normal for me as a hard-media evangelist – Jesus, the adverts – but it does mean that I can tell that ‘Because It’s Not Love (But It’s Still A Feeling)’ was a single, as there’s a video to watch. The tune is a nice soda-pop hop, with handclaps and everything, and the visuals are bright and cheerful, even if they look like an unadventurous Eurovision staging from 2014 (I think it’s the strange box the girls keep getting in). Suitably for a single it has the richest vocals so far on the album, with some pleasing harmonies. 

‘Sex’ is less fun that the name threatens, but ‘One Night Stand’ is more bouncily enjoyable, and at 1.40 is a perfect length for music of this sort (insert joke about average length of sexual encounters here). Ooh, ‘ABC’ is another single. But it misses a trick by animating the band members rather than capturing their natural charm - seriously this looks like the credits of some knock-off Channel 5 version of Eurotrash which doesn’t have any rude bits. The song is decent and sprightly, despite having an awkward line in the chorus that is at least a syllable too long, but calling your throwback teen-pop song ‘ABC’ is tempting fate considering that’s one of the true greats: might as well call it ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ or ‘Beethoven’s 9th'. Oh, wait, is it the end of the LP already? ‘I Love You’ is rather sweet, and then we’re done. Well, that was most enjoyable. Perhaps there were about three tracks that felt inessential, but it’s hardly the first album I can say that about, and considering only one track here breaks the three-minute mark, these missteps don’t last long. Nice one, Russ, thanks for the recommendation, good unpretentious pop music. I’m off to buy a pencil case I so I can write the band’s name on it in biro. 

Maniac Çop

At the moment, all I can do is sing "Jubilee-ee-ee-ee" to this tune, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev1aBt-_Zs4.  I'm sure ERII is having the same experience.

POLIÇA – MADNESS (Memphis Industries) 

It’s a little strange that, in our era when most music is experienced online as individually selected tracks or via curated playlists, the album is still the default release model for the music industry. And, what’s more surprising is that so many albums still follow the sorts of tracklisting logic that was applied fifty or more years ago, despite the acknowledged fact that only the most die-hard physical-medium fetishists will always play all the music in the same order. Poliça’s Madness – the Minneapolis act’s sixth or seventh album, depending on which online tally you believe – could be used to teach students classic album structure methodology. 

Lesson one: start with a big tune. Madness opens with 'Alive'’s ominous three-note bassline. It may not be startlingly original but delivers a glorious bad-trip club vibe, and when Channy Leaneagh’s ominous vocals join the submerged drums the track blossoms into the malevolent cousin of a dance-pop banger. The chorus introduces a little more optimism, as the track slowly swells to a sort of paranoid euphoria; in fact, punch up the vocal volume and edit, and this could be one of those arty East European electro tracks that get highly praised in Eurovision (though never win).

Lesson two: follow up with something equally strong, but more ambiguous. 'Violence' somewhat resembles the regret-seeped torch songs of the trip-hop era, but the stately vocal sits upon a shifting backing which sounds like some cellos melting. The bass drum comes in with unexpected vigour, but it still sounds sub-aquatic, the rest of the soundfield being a furling forest of synth tones and Rolodex-flicking percussion. This ever-shifting sonic mutation, typifying the album, may reflect producer Ryan Olson’s use of the “anthropomorphic production tool” AllOvers(c), and it certainly reflects the cover artwork, a blur of body parts and fleshy abstraction that looks like an orgy hasn’t finished downloading.

Lesson three: change the tempo. Madness’s third track, 'Away', is a big-boned ballad which could have been a forgotten Girls Aloud single, except once again the backing is gloopily muffled, giving the emotive vocal a clear focus. It’s pretty great, and features enough smothered whines and burbles to be useful if you wanted to know what a noughties R’n’B lament might sound like from inside Darth Vader’s helmet.   

Lesson four: hide the less good material. Alas, the following three songs don’t live up to these openers. The title track boasts some nice glitchy synths sitting somewhere between Vangelis and Autechre, and the vocal is breathily intimate (a cross between Björk’s 'Headphones' and Frank Sinatra serenading the barflies on 'In The Wee Small Hours'), but beyond this neither the harmonic structure nor the melody are hugely interesting. If this were being performed on a piano in the corner of  a swanky bar, you’d barely notice – especially whilst trying to work out how a bottle of beer costs twelve quid. The track is rescued by the arrival of some mournfully scratchy folk violin, sounding like an arrangement of 'A Lark Ascending' at a banshee funeral. 'Blood' starts with some excellent robo-dub in a Basic Channel style, but this is quickly replaced by a lacklustre mid-tempo tune; if we were back at Eurovision, this is a plodding Luxembourg entry that can’t get beyond the semis. 'Fountain' is a little better, a slow resigned piano creating an undertow that deepens the effect of the reverby FX-laden vocal, under which bassist Chris Bierden adds subtle curlicues. Again, it’s the production rather than the composition that carries the track, but you might prick up your ears in the swanky bar, as you ruefully emptied your £8 ramekin of cashews. 

Lesson five: end on a big emotion. 'Sweet Memz' may have a horribly knowing title, but it’s delightful, frosty dream-pop vocals sharing space with keyboard tones that sound like bugles playing for the fallen dead in a thick mist, over a surprisingly bouncy drum pattern. It’s a strong ending to a perfectly paced album, but despite the elegant sequencing, there are definitely tracks you’ll come back to far more than others.