Mandalay Instinct

Mandalay Instinct

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Mandalay is composed of Saul Freeman, the musical performance half of the esoteric "gallery band" Thieves, and his soaringly vocal counterpart, Nicola Hitchcock. Marginally lumped in with other ripple-free trip-hoppers of the mid-'90s, they enjoy moments of innovation and independence from the trappings of trip with the sprawling and ambitious Instinct. Hitchcock's voice is chilly but not shrill, eerie in the high, womanly tradition of Sandy Denny and even some of Joni Mitchell's furthest flings, but she is pure bone-chilling rock & roll and then some. Her songs rock out the structures of girl issues and romantic contemplations, aggressively feminist and argumentative. The sentiments of "Too Much Room" and "Don't Invent Me" echo some randy but not preemptive commentary along the lines of Sinéad O'Connor; you get the feeling she's not necessarily annoyed with men at large but with some common pattern dynamics. There's a tendency to compare Mandalay with the far poppier Moloko, but Hitchcock and Freeman are simply more serious and musically clustered together. Freeman supplies metallic electronics, avant-jazz samples, and drop-ins (Jon Hassell passes by), and even classical contributions (if you're quick you can catch Gorecki's "Symphony No. 3" that opens "Not Seventeen"). Such thoughtful lyrics and provocative musicianship defy comparisons to pop, but ultimately, pop it is; and it's pop of the classiest variety

Lilys The 3 Way

Lilys The 3 Way

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By the time of their fourth full-length album, 1999's The 3 Way, Lilys had already gone through a more dramatic evolution in just a few years than many bands experience throughout an entire career. Centered around songwriter and sole consistent member Kurt Heasley, Lilys began as a fuzzy shoegaze band, making sounds heavily influenced by My Bloody Valentine for their first few albums before taking a dramatic left turn toward orchestral mod pop created in the likeness of the Kinks, the Zombies, and the Small Faces on 1996's Better Can't Make Your Life Better. Compared to that album, Lilys' output from just a few years earlier sounded like the work of a completely different band. This '60s-steeped phase of the band reached its highest form with The 3 Way, an album where Heasley's British Invasion and baroque pop influences felt less like faithful recreations, and bled more into his own cracked songwriting sensibilities. The overwhelming influence of the Kinks is still undeniable as album-opener "Dimes Makes Dollars" kicks things off with a bumbling garage rock riff and the kind of cheeky melodies Ray Davies perfected on Face to Face. As the song goes on, however, Heasley's eccentricities start leaking into view as the melodies become more angular and winding. The album splits its time between quick stomping jams and drawn out song suites like the quickly shifting "Socs Hip" and "Leo Ryan (Our Pharoah's Slave)." On these longer, more meandering tracks, Heasley assembles a pastiche made up of Left Banke harpsichord sounds, fuzz guitar borrowed from the Action, and quick-turning genre exercises following the blueprint of The Who Sell Out. The wildly mapped song structures rarely stay in one mode for more than a few bars, and sometimes the songs start in S.F. Sorrow territory and end up traipsing through disco strings and bursts of free jazz saxophone. Throughout The 3 Way, Heasley's distracted muse becomes the main attraction. He recalls Bowie's sultry Aladdin Sane balladry on "The Spirits Merchant" before offering up what sounds like an Arthur outtake moments later with "The Lost Victory," throwing in nods to the Monkees, lounge pop, and even the smallest traces of the blissed-out shoegaze guitar that defined earlier iterations of Lilys. Indie bands fixating on '60s pop was fairly commonplace by the late '90s, but the way Lilys explored this muse would have more of a ripple effect. There are links in Heasley's circuitous melodies and rapid key changes to Elephant 6 peers Of Montreal and Apples in Stereo, and the sense of groove that guides The 3 Way's funkier experiments would resurface four years later on Belle and Sebastian's far more visible effort Dear Catastrophe Waitress. While the bold-faced influences are easy to pick out, the way Heasley used them as a starting point to break new creative ground requires deeper listening. Once you get past the Kinks references emblazoned in many of the songs, Lilys' own silent influence on the course of indie rock that followed becomes more apparent.

Th' Faith Healers Lido

Th' Faith Healers Lido

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Th' Faith Healers' outstanding full-length debut is a wonderfully visceral experience; while often lumped in with the concurrent shoegazer movement, the group's sound is far darker and grittier, their guitars churning instead of shimmering and their attitude menacing instead of blissful. Songs often spring from simple, hypnotic riffs and rhythms which inevitably swerve out of control, screeching with peals of feedback and shooting off sparks -- "Hippy Hole" is a white-noise roller coaster, while the taut "Don't Jones Me" slowly builds from a loping drum beat and a muted guitar line to arrive at a crashing climax. To top it off, Lido even sports a taut cover of Can's "Mother Sky." Great stuff.

Soulsavers The Light The Dead See

Soulsavers The Light The Dead See

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Having traveled the dusty road previously with alt rock singer Mark Lanegan, U.K. production duo Soulsavers turn to the equally tortured soul Dave Gahan on The Light the Dead See, but this European union still opens their album with a mournful harmonica. Of course, Soulsavers have long been the production duo who prefers the sounds of spaghetti westerns to synthesizers, while making their guests sound as grand and grave as Leonard Cohen lost in the high lonesome, so this Depeche in exile is a perfect fit. Brooding across canyons here, Gahan is somewhere between James Dean and a preacher in this atmosphere, and even if his talk of darkness, the Devil, saviors, and the price you pay has all been covered with the Mode, he still sounds renewed, making sliding the downward spiral sound as intoxicating as ever, even when he explains what waits for those who hit the bottom. It's the grand closing suite of "Take" (just guitar, voice, piano, and that harmonica, but as emotionally big as any of the orchestral numbers) and "Tonight" (an actual rock number designed to the return the listener to earth after such a dour journey) that seals the deal, making The Light the Dead See not just an exciting meeting of troubled minds, but a well designed full-length, offering a persuasive rainy day soundtrack that works even when there's not a cloud in the sky.

Gavin Friday Shag Tobacco

Gavin Friday Shag Tobacco

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Friday's third solo effort, as always with Seezer as his main collaborator, provided another development in his musical approach with the choice of Bomb the Bass mainman Tim Simenon as producer. Further continuing the initial experiments the two did on Adam 'n' Eve, Simenon helped create a dance-influenced album that ranges from industrial slams to clean, elegant breaks, in many ways serving as the model for his following work with Depeche Mode on Ultra. There's more than a few hints of where Massive Attack would end up on Mezzanine as well, as the low pulses and sudden guitar/drum hits on the title track show -- and the fact that the lead single from Shag Tobacco was named "Angel." Friday himself is still the sharp-tongued ruined romantic of the previous albums, as apt to swoon as wittily shred and breathlessly gasp, while Seezer again provides the music and core work on keyboards and accordion (check out "Dolls") to back him perfectly. The obvious glam inspirations the two have always had get full confirmation via a great cover of T. Rex's "The Slider," but rather than trying to recreate that song's exact atmosphere, Simenon helps whip up a clattering, stop-start performance that still keeps all the sex. As for the rest of Shag Tobacco, it's one lush, playful plunge after another into just enough decadence. "Angel" sounds rather like an extension of the striking Adam 'n' Eve closer "Eden," similarly mixing wonderful falsetto from Friday with steady yet soaring music, including great fuzz bass from Erik Sanko. With its outrageous title, "Mr. Pussy" gets credit for being named after a legendary transvestite from Dublin, who provides the brief spoken word conclusion and shows he has as much style as Friday himself.

The High Llamas Gideon Gaye

The High Llamas Gideon Gaye

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Sean O'Hagan has obviously done his Brian Wilson homework, listening to all the albums the Beach Boys recorded between Pet Sounds and Surf's Up. Cheeky references to cuts like "Let's Get Away for a While" and "Surf's Up" pop up from time to time on this lush set, which takes its cues from both Wilson's most melodic and most eccentric qualities (though the ten-minute flute solo on "Track Goes By" does this to excess). It's an impressive outing that sounds like little else in the alternative rock world of the mid-'90s. But it only establishes O'Hagan and his various pals as charming emulators, rather than true innovators.

Trembling Blue Stars Her Handwriting Reissue

Trembling Blue Stars Her Handwriting Reissue

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Informed by the breakup -- both professional and personal -- of Robert Wratten and Annemari Davies, the gossamer Her Handwriting is heartbreakingly delicate and forlorn; few artists bare their souls quite so beautifully as Wratten, and the 14 tracks which make up Trembling Blue Stars' debut rank among his most sublime to date, shards of melancholia made smooth with dreamy guitars and a hint of ambient atmosphere. Crafted in collaboration with ex-Saint Etienne arranger Ian Catt, the album possesses a stately elegance which allows Wratten to dangle on the brink of romantic despair but never allows him or his songs to lose their dignity -- "Abba on the Jukebox" easily captures the evocative grandeur of its title, while other highlights like "For This One" shimmer with breathtaking loveliness. [This edition contains bonus tracks.]

Nitzer Ebb Showtime Expanded Collectors Edition

Nitzer Ebb Showtime Expanded Collectors Edition

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Having arguably perfected their original formula on Belief -- as well as reaching its limitations -- Douglas McCarthy and Bon Harris started to experiment in a variety of different directions on Showtime, resulting in their best album. Keeping all the original D.A.F.-derived tension and approach of the group's earliest days but showing a greater facility for everything from variety in arrangements to more complex lyrics, Showtime doesn't waste a note (it's not even 40 minutes long) and aims for full attack on all fronts. It doesn't hurt that the album is bookended by two of the band's best-ever singles. "Getting Closer" captures an atmosphere of impending, imminent doom better than just about anything outside of prime Killing Joke, while the heavy synth distortion makes the track rock, all without using guitars. The way the song literally revs up alone is worth the listen. Meanwhile, "Fun to Be Had" starts with an understated, almost swinging start before transforming into a total crowd-pleaser, Harris' astonishing ear for brutally effective rhythms welded to McCarthy in full rabble-rousing mode ("You are young/They are old/Control!/Is all they got to Give!"). Elsewhere is one of electronic body music's all-time highlights, "Lightning Man." With Harris adding both oboe and horn samples to the beats, helping to create a demented atmosphere reminiscent of Foetus, McCarthy steers away from his usual slogan approach to create a portrait of a strange, demonic figure (apparently a metaphor for alcohol addiction) preying on others. The off-kilter cabaret influence crops up throughout the album, with worthy examples including "Nobody Knows," a slow bluesy crawl, while "One Man's Burden" in particular is a highlight of Harris' expanding musical reach, with subtle rhythm shifts and orchestrations showing how soft can work for impact just as well as loud

Clock DVA Advantage

Clock DVA Advantage

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Clock Dva were a strange band in the '80s; not so much for their sounds, which were always somewhat misaligned within the Industrial scene, but for the fact that just when they seemed about to break up, they would release a masterpiece (the same thing would happen during the 1990 reunion, a year in which they would present "Buried Dreams", the hardest and most experimental album of their career, ten years after their debut). In 1983, following the death of bassist Turner and temporary dispersals into parallel projects, frontman Adi Newton decided to surround himself with a group of new collaborators (including guitarist John Valentine Carruthers and producer/keyboardist Hugh Jones) and effectively reshape the band's sound. The monolithic Industrial atmospheres of the previous Thirst album disappeared in favor of more accessible music, still nocturnal and urban but decidedly more akin to the British post-punk scene. Significant novelties in the sound of "Advantage" include an unprecedented taste for more open (at times almost epic) vocals and the presence of more aggressive horn arrangements while drums and drum machines create almost dance-like rhythms against the backdrop of Carruthers' multifaceted guitar distortions. A sound that constantly enriches itself with progressively different colors, supported by writing capable of capturing multiple nuances, from the most heart-wrenching moments to the more dissonant ones, between solitary pain and ecstatic exaltation. Instead of empty basements and abandoned factories preyed upon by mutants, the setting this time seems to be the highly romantic one of a large and rainy metropolis. Here, a film noir protagonist roams about in the most classic and dusty of trench coats; the ghosts of detectives with lost souls continuously pass by with their trail of impossible loves, blind dates, and tears lost in the rain. The sense of threat grows from track to track (or rather, from tale to tale) as Newton's cavernous voice guides us towards hotel rooms that have witnessed indecipherable misdeeds, following the trail of coded messages delivered by fatal blondes while open elevators wait to take us towards some kind of 'eternity'..

Howard Jones Dream Into Action (Super Deluxe Edition)

Howard Jones Dream Into Action (Super Deluxe Edition)

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Dream Into Action begins with Howard Jones singing "Things Can Only Get Better," a sentiment that only hints at the good vibes touted by the synth pop singer on his second album. On his debut, 1984's Human's Lib, Jones sang about positivity, but this sequel plays like a self-empowerment manifesto, filled with cautionary tales and anthems of hope. "No One Is to Blame," a cavernous ballad of encouragement which was given a hit revision with the assistance of Phil Collins, exemplifies the latter but it doesn't typify the album, which trades in peppy pop tunes of self-actualization, best represented by the chipper hits "Things Can Only Get Better" and "Life in One Day." Synthesizers retain their place in the spotlight but Dream Into Action doesn't feel like a synth pop album, not in the way the sleekly electronic Human's Lib did. Instead, this is a big, bright album that epitomizes the sound of the mainstream in the mid-'80s, a time when computers worked overtime to disguise themselves as human sounds. And that's why Dream Into Action is, in many ways, the apotheosis of Howard Jones' career: he'd yet to drift into softened adult contemporary, and he still had enthusiasm for his hooks, his machines, and his positivity, the very things that distinguished him from the legions of synth poppers in the mid-'80s. [Cherry Red's 2018 Super Deluxe edition of Dream Into Action is filled with rarities, including the early "DIA Farmyard Sessions," extended mixes, and single edits.]

Two Lone Swordsmen The Fifth Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate)

Two Lone Swordsmen The Fifth Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate)

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Andrew Weatherall's first post-Sabres outing (together with Keith Tenniswood) is a truly beguiling cachet of alternately moody and unexpectedly funky down- and mid-tempo electro. Miles more complex and integrated than such future-funk wibblers as the Clear Records stable, Fifth Mission is often as tear-jerkingly emotional as it is goofball lino material; machine music imbued with more than a bit of humanity. Uniformly excellent

The Damned Damned Damned Damned (30th Anniversary Edition)

The Damned Damned Damned Damned (30th Anniversary Edition)

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While the Sex Pistols will always have a prominent place in the story of U.K. punk, the Damned did nearly everything first, including the first single, the smoking "New Rose," and the first album, namely this stone classic of rock & roll fire. At just half an hour long, Damned Damned Damned is a permanent testimony to original guitarist Brian James' songwriting (ten of the 12 tracks are his) and the band's take-no-prisoners aesthetic. Starting with Captain Sensible's sharp bassline for "Neat Neat Neat," which rapidly explodes into a full band thrash, the Damned left rhetoric for the theoreticians and political posing for the Clash. All the foursome wanted to do was rock, and that they do here. Dave Vanian already has his spooky-voiced theatrics down cold; "Feel the Pain" indulges his Alice Cooper fascination while the band creates some creepy fun behind him. Most of the time, he's yelping with the best of them, but with considerably more control than most of the era's shouters. Scabies' considerable reputation as a drummer starts here; comparisons flew thick and fast to Keith Moon, and not just for on-stage antics (of which there were plenty). His sense of stop-start rhythm and fills is simply astounding, whether on "So Messed Up" or in his own one-minute goof, "Stab Yer Back." Though the Captain doesn't get his full chance to shine on bass, he's more than adequate, while James just cranks the amps and lets fly. Concluding with a version of the Stooges' "I Feel Alright" that sounds hollower than the original but no less energetic, Damned Damned Damned is and remains rock at its messy, wonderful Best

The Shamen En-Tact

The Shamen En-Tact

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Besides being one of the few early British dance albums worth its weight in artistry as well as sound, En-Tact is a truly historical gathering of the cream of the new dance music; mixing and production come from a cast including Paul Oakenfold, William Orbit, Graham Massey, Orbital, Evil Eddie Richards, the Beatmasters, Meat Beat Manifesto, Joey Beltram, Tommy Musto, the Irresistible Force and Caspar Pound. The Shamen fare well also on their own productions, and the singles "Move Any Mountain," "Make It Mine" and "Hyperreal Orbit" are infectious techno-pop anthems, while "Omega Amigo" is an early ambient classic.