Mean Creek Are Not Hemophiliacs

Mean Creek is a Bostonian band who take folk rock and post-grunge, smash those sounds together and come up with a fantastic collision of quiet/loud dynamics and huge songs. Their latest EP Hemophiliac is loaded with chunky riffs, boy/girl vocals, and songs which feel like aural rollercoasters. A bit like Bob Mould at times, Mean Creek write emotionally drenched songs that seem to rise and fall on waves of distorted, crunchy, and hazy guitar work. It's all pretty driving stuff that powers its way through each of the four songs that are here.

With the strong interplay between vocalists and those power chords churning away in the background Hemophiliac is powerful stuff that sounds like the best album I never got to play on college radio in 1993. There's an air of classicism about Mean Creek that I like. They've taken an angle and an approach and are slowly but surely manipulating it to make it their own. This is a band who I've heard over the course of two records master the quiet / loud dynamic and Hemophiliac is their latest playground in which to display their talents. And after listening to this about five times in a row, here's hoping the stumble into a bigger playground soon.

Big Pink's Future This Week

Wow. If ever I wondered if the music I listened to in the 90's would leave a lasting legacy my doubts have been answered singularly by The Big Pink. This band so readily and so happily embrace the British pop scene from the years 1990-1992 you'd almost swear that they were from that time period. If you can imagine Curve with a male vocalist instead of Toni Halliday than you kind of have an idea of where The Big Pink are coming from. Their album Future This is a record so lost in miasma and baggy beats that it only makes sense that legendary mixer Alan Moulder worked on the record and gave it an authentic early 90's sheen to it.

Instantly accessible and incredibly good Future This will hold your attention for the duration of it's 45 minutes. With shimmery guitars, electronic beats, ethereal vocals and songs that seem to whisper by Future This is a sweeping, vaporous album that's simply mesmerizing. With riffs rattling around empty spaces in your head and invisible hooks holding your ears firmly in place once The Big Pink get started they simply will not let go of your attention span. That's fine as far as I'm concerned because this is such an amazing post-shoegazing album that it deserves my constant attention.

Future This is just about perfect. The Big Pink's admiration of the early 90's, the use of Alan Moulder and Paul Epworth, the hazy songs, the reverberating and semi-gothy overtones all propel this album to starry heights. Future This proves time and time again that despite being lambasted in the music press Shoegazing was one of the most important movements in British pop over the last thirty years. The Big Pink have tapped into that and made it their own with Future This. It might only be January, but this is easily going to be one of my Top 25 albums of 2012.

Music From the Motion Picture Chronicle Is Super

Chronicle the movie seems to be like a lost episode of Heroes. Three boys stumble upon something mysterious that gives them superpowers. And like Spiderman they learn that with great power comes great responsibility...but being young and dumb it takes them a while to learn this. The album that corresponds with this movie Music From the Motion Picture Chronicle is also filled with great power...but it's power that has no responsibility just one heck of a punch.

Half the fun of listening to this album is to actually find where in the movie (if at all) the songs are used as it's always interesting to see how the producers were thinking when they chose the artists they chose for certain scenes. I’m not sure where the songs are yet, but the producers must have had their heads in the clouds as Chronicle features a host of artists that like the characters in the film have superpowers. From The Longcut to Deastro to Simian Mobile Disco, Congorock to Class Actress to M83 and a whole bunch in between this is an album that is packed with heavy hitters.

While I'm not sure how good the actual movie is/was I do know that the music from it is fantastic on its own right. It's so good, in fact, that Music From the Motion Picture Chronicle would stand on it's own two legs even if it were not attached to a blockbuster movie. And while these sorts of records usually contain a smattering of tracks that are any good Music From the Motion Picture Chronicle simply doesn't have one duff track. This is truly all killer and no filler. From the bedroom to the disco and back again, this is one album that takes you on a whirlwind trip of the current indie in electro scenes faster than a speeding bullet.

A fantastic compilation of cutting edge music that’s seemingly ahead of the curve Music From the Motion Picture Chronicle is the sort of thing you should buy regardless of what it’s designed to promote. It may not grant you super powers upon listening to it, it will give your ears a work out. For a soundtrack record…that’s pretty amazing.

Field Music Line Up and Plumb The Line

Sunderland's wunderkinds Field Music have been busy over the last year. Since 2011 they've been working on their new album Plumb as well constructing their new studio in which they eventually recorded said album in. So between construction projects and writing songs the band found themselves heading back to a more angular, quirky and odd timed style of play. Plumb will remind long time listeners of their first couple of albums as opposed to the sprawling Measure that opened things wide up for Field Music.

While Plumb harks back to Field Music's classic sound the band filtered these songs through the influence of 20th century film music (not field music) and allowed their songs to be shaped by it. The results are strange off kilter tunes that touch on Bowie like sounds while maintaining a post-post punk yet orchestrated approach. It's all right angles, questionable synth stabs, half attempts at string arrangements and rhythms that even Neal Peart would find unusual. This is pop music if it was processed through analog calculators from the 70's and it's rather entertaining.

Guitars ricochet off synths and beats stumble their way along as Plumb tries to maintain a controlled version of musical chaos. Not a lot of what they're doing here makes sense in a pop way, and in fact it would be most difficult to find a hit single on this record. For every moment of clarity there are three obtuse ones and Plumb is anything but catchy. Yet it's that strange approach and it’s skittering around pop music that makes this record so good. Field Music have clearly set off on a path that's all their own and whether it's sprawling songs or Plumb's mathematical equations set to music following them down that path is sure to be a worthwhile and intelligent venture.

We Are The Works In Progress

We Are The Works In Progress is a fourteen song tribute album dedicated to Japan and it's ongoing efforts to heal itself post tsunami. Put together by Blonde Redhead's Kazu Makino and released on her own label, Asa Wa Kuru, the album is designed to support Kazu's homeland in it's ongoing time of need. With an incredible response to the idea and a massive number of artists who wanted to contribute one suspects the difficulty in putting this compilation together was witling it down to one CD.

Surprisingly, and unlike most other charity albums, We Are The Works In Progress is a cohesive album that seems to flow perfectly together from one song to the next. Call it luck or artistry, but the simple fact that the fourteen artists here all sound remarkably well together is pretty cool. Featuring a whole host of ambient and atmospheric tracks the album seems to reflect the nature of what transpired on that fateful day last year. Cloudy, moody and yet dangerously beautiful the tracks seem to haunt while leaving you mesmerized. From Four Tet to Terry Riley to Blonde Redheard to Pantha Du Prince, Liars to Deerhunter to David Sylvian and even Interpol they all contribute to this album and offer up worthy tracks.

Done for a great cause and containing enough soul stirring emotional ambience to last a lifetime, We Are The Works In Progress is truly a beautiful album with a deeply seeded message. Even though the earthquake and tsunami were last year the needs of the citizens of the coastal community still exist and if this helps them out even in a minor way it's all been worth it. Ambient music doesn't get much better than this and We Are The Works In Progress is an album that's worthy of your attention and even more worthy of your possession.

Francis Harris Pays Tribute To Leland

Francis Harris is a Brooklyn based producer who usually goes by the name of Adultnapper. But, unlike his alias, Francis Harris the man composes tunes that are deep, introspective, reflective, and emotional that while generally chilled out is still dance floor friendly. His latest album as himself, Leland is a requiem to his father which I can tell you from personal experience is truly awesome.

Deeply personal and thoughtful Leland is a beautiful sparsely arranged album that features minimal instrumentation, chilled out vibes, and lush soundscapes. It's a mesmerizing effort and Francis Harris knocks it out of the park with his wandering synths that are occasionally accompanied by cellos, trumpets, pianos, guitar and even the odd vocal or two. This is an album of ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys and is so well constructed that it's the sort of thing that washes over you and cleanses your aural palette. Harris' mixture of ambient landscapes, deep grooves, and textural mastery truly makes Leland an awesome album. Chill out doesn't get much better than this.

Truly magnificent and lovingly crafted, Francis Harris has created a fitting tribute to his father. Leland is a lasting testament to his dad and the musicianship and songs contained herein would undoubtedly make him proud. Nice job Francis.

The Unthanks Give Thanks

If you're a huge fan of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons and you want to let the world know just how big of fans you are what do you do? Well if you're The Unthanks you pay tribute to them in the best way possible, you play their songs and record them for the world to hear. And that’s exactly what they did. Rachel and Becky Unthank recorded The Songs of Robert Wyatt & Antony & The Johnsons Live From The Union Chapel London one rather quiet night in 2010 where they played these songs live and now two years later have just released these recordings.

The Songs of Robert Wyatt & Antony & The Johnsons Live From The Union Chapel London defines what it means to be intimate. These songs are so quietly played and so sparsely arranged that it sounds as if The Unthanks are playing in front of you. The sisters take songs that are already ridiculously fragile and make them even more so. The songs are held together by piano strings, vocal chords, love, and not much else. It's an incredibly moving recording and the emotion that pours out of these girls is stunning.

This is one heck of a live recording and is so quiet you can hear a pin drop. Rachel and Becky got nods from the artists they paid tribute to and in fact Robert Wyatt helped prepare the sisters to play his songs. You can tell this as the songs are brilliantly orchestrated and even though there's only two of them with some accompaniment the album sounds louder than bombs.

I'm generally not a fan of quiet music but there's just something so riveting about The Unthanks and about the tales they weave between songs, how they play these songs, and how genuinely affectionate they are towards them that reels you in. While I might not listen to this every day, it's definitely the sort of thing for a cold lonely winter afternoon. The Songs of Robert Wyatt & Antony & The Johnsons Live From The Union Chapel London as played by The Unthanks is required listening for fans of all the artists involved or anyone that likes a good cry.