Reviews: Crystal Castles, Sebastian Tellier, Big Dada Comp

Here's a few assorted reviews from the last year. All Fact Magazine, would you believe:

Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
(Last Gang)

Though their 2007 credentials stand – Klaxons and Uffie remixes, a ne’er-more-oblique myspace yelling “murder, blank looks on girls, knives” as influences and are fond of saying “taxidermy” in interviews – Crystal Castles’ debut sounds so unashamedly electroclash it’s astounding there’s no DJ Hell hidden track. Which is lovely to be reminded of: grabbing the music of the last seven years, forgetting about the real shit and running for August 2001 like there’s no tomorrow is A-OK with us. Crystal Castles is tender, escapist ragtime for an economic downswing and a seven-year-old war on terror. What makes this LP special isn’t the “sonic invasion” they push, but its control and compassion. ‘Crimewave (Crystal Castles vs HEALTH)’ is a hard-edged song, but its graceful keyboard loop is malleable rather than mayhem-lead and ‘Vanished’s sparking hi-hats and reverb-laden construction owes as much to Suicide’s plaintive thuds as CC’s aesthetic owes to Vega and Rev. When the sonic destruction-as-creation their shows promise lets rip, as it does on ‘Xxzxcuzx Me’ and ‘Love and Caring’, it’s more of a refreshing hint than a full Glasgow kiss towards noise, and while their remixes and PRs press the “8-bit chaos” button, the tone general of this eponymous debut, with its concept-driven, sexually platonic tidy electro, is closer to Fisherspooner than Venetian Snares. And nicely done it is too: Ethin and Alice could easily slip into the undergrowth, but don’t brush over them – this is a don’t-sleep album for people who need more sleep.

Various
Well Deep: Ten Years Of Big Dada
Big Dada

Thankfully, for a hip-hop label based in the UK, this greatest hits and misses retrospective, is free from the mundane aggro that makes UKHH the sick man of music. Where the Low Life stable celebrate the parochial and the insular, Big Dada’s abstract eccentricity trots the globe – French farce-core jams from TTC, King Geodorah’s DC Comics raps and Diplo’s baile funk are represented here. Of course, the two discs are full of English national anthems – Roots Manuva's 'Witness (1 Hope)' still sounds as oh-my-days heavy as it did six years ago, and Wiley’s '50/50' makes you miss him about 500 times more than listening to Playtime Is Over in full did. It’s the humour, stupid: while Jehst’s peers look like they’ve never seen an episode of Allo Allo in their lives, Roots Manuva’s legendarily self-deprecating sports day video on the accompanying DVD is a joy.
A little more weight would be welcome, though. cLOUDDEAD – the band that launched a thousand blogs – sound far easier to explain than actually, you know, enjoy, though the magnificent Boards of Canada mix of Dead Dogs is a suitably majestic piece of the British pastoral. The astonishing thing about this collection is how bleeding edge almost every song on this record sounds – New Flesh’s 'Stick And Move' sounds as much like the future as it did five years ago, which can have a strangely merciless bent cumulatively. That quibble aside, Big Dada have spent a decade proving that anti-pop hip-hop doesn’t have to neglect the party principle – for most rappers here, MC means move the crowd. These are the anthems, so get your damn hands up.

Sebastian Tellier
Sexuality
Lucky Number

There are many “one moment of genius, 60 minutes of mediocrity” musicians in the world, but few are eccentric French Christ look-alikes with Air, Mr Ozio, SebAstian, and Daft Punk on their facebook, fewer who theme albums around issues of the human heart and are studio wizards with doom-prog dads. Fewer still have penned a track as “whimper like a manchild” as ‘La Ritournelle’. If Sexuality were made up of twenty-second samples, this would be as much of an instant classic as La Rit. But while none of these 11 slabs of spacey Eurosoul is without its own “wow” moment, many simply disappear away into their own faultless shimmer. It’s not until ‘Sexual Sportswear’ arrives in all its galloping, cosmic glory that Tellier does anything more than announce his unbearable relevance of being—he actually proves exciting and exhilarating for the full sweat-drenched length of a track. Much of the remaining 10 songs disappear into a vodocoder’d cosmic disco haze — an immaculately filthy bassline here, graceful chord structure there, but too often something feels missing from too many songs. This said, there is understated yet stately presence at work here, and when it a songs blasts, it fucking blasts — like on ‘Elle’s shift from cheese stomp to elegant rubber soul or on album closer and masterpiece ‘L’Amor Et La Violence’. Its heartbreaking, whispered words ebb over a sobbing, tailored synth line that builds and breaks over 5 minutes and 22 seconds of sumptuous beauty — it’s so moving that you forget to care that Seb may well have his tongue firmly between his molars. Tellier is musician to love and follow — his Sessions and Universe collections, and the multitude of remixes kicking about prove his unerring genius for style, eccentricity and melody. One day, Tellier will drop the album he has been promising for te best part of a decade. It pains me to say so, but Sexuality doesn’t feel like it.

Monkey, Don’t!
Gubbins
Manna Records

Gubbins is about getting high in a seaside town. Though Mark Robson (the wistfully troubled mind behind Monkey, Don’t!) is now settled in London Town, you get the feeling he’ll never leave his sleepy Hampshire roots. Not that that’s anything to be ashamed of: some of best recent British oddball music of the last decade (Beta Band, Super Furry Animals, Gorky’s, Field Music) has come out of toe-kicking suburban life. Coiled tedium, blissful mindlessness, stupid jokes – this’s Monkey, Don’t!’s territory. The songs drift into on another – this is an album of restless, parochial, eccentric invention. Street Of Sound has Acid House beat-throbs mixed into the Kinks’ guitars and Lalo Schriffin’s breaks – a combination that sound as natural as it would if they were all bought in a three for £12 bin at Woolies. The twee is never more than two steps away from this record, but its brilliantly clever arrangements provide enough to keep you from wanting to listen to Black Flag dead loud. Metaphor alert: like your home town, this is an album that is wonderful in its own, implacable way, and though you’ll be unbearably annoyed if you stay more than two hours, you’ll get strangely defensive should anyone take the mickey out of it.