Archive for February 2010
Imogen Heap – Single Review – First Train Home
Imogen Heap’s single release First Train Home comes in two very unique versions. The first version and the first song on the single is a fast moving, hip, dance song with funky synthesised beats. The second version of the song is a slower, more measured tune, accompanied with simple piano and fewer synthesised effects.
Imogen’s lyrics are touching and intimate. She sings, “The urge to feel your face, and blood rushing to paint, my handprint.” The beauty of her voice coupled with the simple, but very poetic lyrics, result in incredibly groovy, commercially appealing but also very personal songs about disillusionment with shallow partying. According to Heap, First Train Home was written the moment she returned home at 8am from a party in Brighton admitting that her “heart just wasn’t in” the night. Her chorus mantra, “First train home – I’ve got to get on,” sums up the jist of the brief, lyrical songs.
Her opening lines, “Bodies disengaged / Our mouths are fleshing over / As hiss and echo gain / Irises retreating to ovals of white” are so simple, but very beautiful. Heap’s main strength is definitively as a lyricist.
The close of both versions is anti-climactic and sounds quite produced. Heap should have stuck with a more organic fade out.
Also, the video produced for the single is too self-conscious and distracts from the originality of the song. Heap is uncomfortable and not relaxed enough in the video to sell herself visually to us. It is kind of funny that Heap chose such a commercial and badly produced video for such an anti-materialist song. Nonetheless, bad video choice aside, the two versions of this really original song are definitely worth a listen. Heap is a kooky, personable artist who I will listen out for more in the future.
http://www.imogenheap.com/
Album Review | Swanton Bombs – Mumbo Jumbo and Murder
In a way, sitting down and writing several hundred words seems the wrong thing to do after listening to Mumbo Jumbo and Murder, because this is music meant for jumping up and down to. But writing several hundred words is what I’m here to do, so let’s go…
Swanton Bombs are a duo from London – Dominic McGuinness on guitar and piano, and Brendan Heaney on drums. Mumbo Jumbo and Murder is their debut album, on which they rock out. And how. We start with a track called ‘Swanton Bombs’, a ninety-second instrumental that bounces along in an irresistible welter of noise, before going straight into the first of eleven more songs – and already the tone is set.
This is a fast and furious album: barely forty minutes long in total, with no song lasting more than four (and three minutes or less the norm), the music restless throughout, and McGuinness often delivering his lyrics like there’s no tomorrow. Even though the album is short, the songs tend to feel longer (not in a bad way), because there’s often a lot going on in them, whether it’s lyrics that have a lot of words to be squeezed in, or a flurry of changes in the music. And, of course, there’s no time for any song to outstay its welcome; so there is plenty here to keep you listening.
What Mumbo Jumbo and Murder is missing, though – for me, at least – is the kind of singalong quality that would make it truly flourish. The singles ‘Doom’ and ‘Viktoria’ come closest, but don’t quite get there. So, this album doesn’t take over my head when I’m listening to it in the way that my favourite music does, but it’s still a good album to listen to.
In short, if you’re looking for a concise, rocking set of songs, Mumbo Jumbo and Murder is the album for you – and Swanton Bombs are an act you’ll want to check out.
Video: ‘Viktoria’
EP Review | Girl in a Thunderbolt – Songs for Modern Lovers
It has been quite a while since a song really stopped me in my tracks because it sounded so different, but Norwich-based Maria Uzor (aka Girl in a Thunderbolt) did just that with her EP Songs for Modern Lovers. It’s a pretty dark view of modern love in Uzor’s lyrics, mirrored in the music: ‘Old Bones’ opens with an ominous shuffling beat and plucked guitar, before the languorous-but-menacing vocals come in, building to a crescendo of a single held note against pounding drums – and that’s only the first minute. Extraordinary stuff.
The next two tracks don’t quite have the same impact, but that’s speaking relatively; they’re still great songs in their own right. ‘On the Wall’ has something of a ‘troubadour’ feel, whilst ‘Volatile’ is more bluesy. Whatever the style, though, it’s Uzor’s vocals that shine most brightly; she sings with such a theatrical relish that it’s hard not to get caught up in her sound.
The closing song, ‘Curtains’, shows a different side to Girl in a Thunderbolt; it’s a simpler acoustic number with a gentler vocal style, but the dark overtones are still there. It rounds off the EP in fine style.
All in all, Songs for Modern Lovers is a brilliant set of tracks that thoroughly deserves a place in your music collection.
