Michael Head, former frontman of the Pale Fountains and current co-leader along with his brother John -- who is also a Strand -- of Brit pop outfit Shack, turns in a stellar chamber pop performance with Magical World of the Strands. Head, who is no stranger to either classy, baroque pop or neo-psychedelia, has composed an album of gorgeously illustrated songs that are lushly orchestrated by a standard rock quartet augmented by a flutist (Leslie Roberts) and a string quartet. The result is an album that, while little known, is a classic, a masterpiece of modern chamber pop. Released in 1997, this disc walks the line between the deep, darkly expressionistic chamber work of the Tindersticks and the airy, classically augmented breeze-laden pop of Nick Drake à la Five Leaves Left -- long before the millennial obsession with the latter's work was revived due to a Volkswagen commercial. The disc's first two tracks, "Queen Matilda" and "Something Like You," are striking in their seductive, velvety tenderness. The ghost of Drake is everywhere, floating in and hovering above the strings. In the refrain to "Something Like You," one can even hear his voice in Head's phrasing. The difference, however, is in how Head composes lyrics: he's more economical; he merely illustrates the essence of what he's communicating--be it image or emotion--and leaves the listener to fill in the blanks. The other huge influence on Head and the Strands is Pentangle, with slippery modal folk and rock. This music could have been recorded in the early '70s, but what it conveys is timeless. What reverberates through this album on every track is musical savvy. It's in the lyrical reverie of "X Hits the Spot," with jangling guitars and subtle backbeat. "It's Harvest Time," recalls Dave Cousins and Strawbs with open, ringing 12 strings, and piping, echoplexed flute. The electric-acoustic guitar tradeoff between Michael and James in "Fontilan," contains a melancholic theme inside a spacious mix colored by swelling strings. Throughout this gem showcases compositional class and an aesthetic sensibility at once artful yet completely accessible to anyone with an interest in well-written, -played, -produced, and -sung pop.
With Advertisements for Myself, Martin Carr steers his Brave Captain project firmly away from the 1960s psychedelia of his earlier albums and back toward the over-the-top fuzz pop of his former band the Boo Radleys. Fans of the Boo Radleys should be beside themselves with pleasure, as "Stand Up and Fight," "I Was a Teenage Death Squad," "This Weight That You Have Found," "Betsi's Beads," "Mobilise," and "My Mind Pictures" are every bit as charming and as stormingly melodic as anything in Carr's back catalog. During these sprightly numbers, Carr returns to the mix of horns, acoustic guitars, fuzzy sound effects, catchy hooks, and emotional choruses that were the Boo Radleys' bread and butter. When Carr is firing on all cylinders here, he comes across like a mad hybrid of Ian Brown, the Charlatans, and surprisingly, the Pet Shop Boys. While Advertisements for Myself is by no means a glam techno affair, its pulse is decidedly electronic, and sometimes it's not a good thing. Carr litters the otherwise superb album with a number of juvenile IDM tracks that serve little purpose other than to jar a listener away from the pop gems. When the beats mingle with other instruments and with Carr's voice, the effect is really quite magical, especially on the crunchy, off-kilter gem "Betsi's Beads." Those looking for a continuation of the jagged Fingertip Sessions will be satiated by the album's lo-fi textures and otherworldly glisten, but this one stomps all over earlier Brave Captain albums and returns Carr to the lo-fi power pop at which he excels.
One of the indisputable classics of electronica, and a defining document for ambient music in particular, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 is Richard D. James' earliest and most fully realized achievement. Reputedly created on homemade equipment deconstructed from standard synthesizers, the music within takes its cue from club beats and the techno rhythms of rave and acid-house culture. Upon these foundations, however, Aphex Twin weaves melodic tapestries of great subtlety, beauty, and atmospheric texture. "Tha," for example, contains a muted bass-drum pulse that becomes the center for evolving patterns of sound -- a kind of aural mandala. The more driving rhythm of "Heliosphan" also gives rise to the ethereal play of melody. Several tracks, such as "Schottkey 7th Path" and "Hedphelym," have a tense, telescoping ambience that evokes paranoia and a sense of gravity-free floating at once. Other selections show Aphex Twin working more firmly in the techno-dance idiom, but even these display a complexity, elegance, and delicacy rarely heard in the genre. This landmark recording is one of the essential building blocks of any electronica collection.
Some people might think it's easy to explain Fourtet: "It's electronica." It might be easiest to wince at these people and concede, "Yes, well sort of." Fourtet, the one-man DJ project of Fridge's Kieran Hebden, doesn't fit so easily into any one category. True, there are beats, samples, and other aspects of turntablism to his music, but there are also live instruments and very real sounding drum tracks -- "organic electronic" might be one way to describe it. Dialogue is Fourtet's first proper album (a slew of remixes and 12-inches have come before and after). Sometimes the record is jazzy: Heavy acoustic bass and scattered drums, but alternately, tabla and sitar, are the key focus of the final track. It seems that Hebden is quite happy in any musical setting he creates. None of the album sounds contrived, and there's an underlying earnestness that provides real credibility. Some of the record sounds, at times, like the more sampled passages of Fridge, but not as austere. If you're feeling fed up with stale, predictable electronica, or feeling ready to brave the shores of the electro-isle, this is an excellent album.
