CD Review: Breeders - Battle mountain

What with the recent spate of power outages that have seemed to affect my street only lately, and the fact that I have been out of the country for a week, my music blogging has suffered a bit. As a travel tip, I can say that when landing in Rome it is not advised to speak to anybody about taxi’s while still in the terminal – you get whisked away to unscrupulous taxi services who then charge the earth. Go outside to the official taxi rank, choose a taxi that looks official, and expect to pay about 40 Euros to get from the airport to the city centre of Rome.



Now, on to the CD Review!

My first impression of this album is that it is Lo-Fi. Meaning that things are stripped pretty much to the bone. It sounds like the Breeders are using old and worn out guitars, drums, amps, tape, bass guitars and Kim Deal’s lungs. Not that this is a bad thing, if the songs are strong.

When the Pixies reunited in 2004 I was a little worried. No matter how much one wants more and more of a good thing – in this case a new Pixies album, there is a lot to be said for quitting while you are winning too. My worrying caused me to avidly scan every little snippet I could find to try to determine whether they were recording again, and if so how it was going. In the end they only managed a couple of songs, which I have not heard as I have never managed to figure out Itunes (they don’t seem to service South Africa), which was the only place that they were released. At the time Frank Black commented that they had had problems getting Kim out of her house and into a recording environment. As always there was probably more to the situation than meets the eye, because she has clearly been channelling energy into the Breeders.

Battle Mountain is an album that I believe belongs in a context. It does not play that well in my car where the low-end is lost to the rumblings of the road (and most of the album is pretty much low-end). You can’t play it with the kids around as they consider it boring, and you probably could not play it with guests around as it might be considered too gloomy/moody. So my dilemma is that it sounds like a good album and what I hear I like, but in my natural surroundings the response to it by the co-inhabitants is cool (a bit like Grinderman’s excellent offering). So maybe the context for the album is sneaking off to a nice quiet place with a pair of good head-phones!

Let me try that out before continuing with the review……

Hmmm, this only goes to show how dangerous first impressions can be. The album is definitely fairly low-key in the sense of an un-hurried and simplified type of offering. But that does not mean it is not exciting. There are great songs on this album, my favourite being ‘Istanbul’ which displays how to create something that is complex and fun with a minimum of technology. The single ‘We’re Gonna Rise’ is also strong, while ‘It’s the Love’ is another strong favourite of mine.

This is also one track in German and one in Spanish, I have no idea what they are about, but I really like the German one. All the way through the bass playing is really good.

Listening to this album reminds me of bands like The Breeders (Doh!), Pixies (Doh!), PJ Harvey (not a band I know), and Throwing Muses. If you like these bands, and want some music that comes across as warm and cosy, you will enjoy this album.

CD Review: Eels – Useless Trinkets B - Sides, Soundtracks, Rarities and Unreleased

Compilations of B-sides can be a risky purchase if there is not some underlying level of consistent talent relating to the band or artist concerned.

I have always been more of an album guy, buying an album rather than a single with the view that singles are generally the tip of the ice-berg and one needs to assess the artists entire offering before coming to hasty conclusions.

What this tends to mean though, is that I generally snap up B side and rarity compilations of bands as it is generally guaranteed that I would not have heard the songs before.

Some of my favourite albums are thus The Pixies’ ‘B sides’ and Nick Caves ‘B sides and rarities’. Nick Cave’s offering is a sheer extravaganza, sprawling over three CD’s, containing one highlight after the next. It drives home everything that can be good about this type of compilation, such as finally getting versions of songs that have only appeared on movie soundtracks, or getting a glimpse of the artist when they are just relaxing and having some fun in the studio. Often these types of compilations include cover versions, which provide further insights into a band or artist with regards to their influences. Further, these compilations also often include stripped down or reworked versions of well known songs, which also provides food for thought where the listener can imagine how things are probably turning out in a parallel universe (I could not resist this ‘Eels type reference’). All in all compilations like this are normally the best way to really get to know a band.

Back to the Eels though and I must state up front that they have been one of my favourite bands for a very long time. The main member of the Eels is an individual known as E (His real name is Mark Everett, but he had two childhood friends who were also called Mark so they started using surnames, eventually shortening them to initials only). Oddly enough I missed the whole ‘Beautiful Freak’ period (their debut album) and only became aware of them through their next album ‘Electro-shock blues’ which created a huge positive impression on me. Since then I have been following their progress pretty closely and therefore became aware of the dual releases in 2008 of both a Greatest Hits and the B sides and rarities compilation. I have not checked out the greatest hits album yet as they are both very expensive in South Africa, and my thinking was that I probably have most of those songs. Therefore I decided to spend my hard-earned cash on the rarities album. Expensive though it is, I must point out that it consists of two CD’s and a DVD, as well as a fairly substantial set of liner notes with entries by E himself. Each CD has 25 songs on it with the DVD containing six songs too, so that totals to 56 songs by the Eels that I have not owned before.

Justification I suppose, unless they are all throw-away junk songs…..

But let me start with the DVD. The DVD contains six songs from the Eels’ 2006 Lollapalooza performance. As I understand it, the live Eels band can take on many configurations, this one being pretty stripped down with only 4 people on stage. However, the performances are satisfyingly off-beat and fun with my favourite being a great version of their early song ‘Not Ready Yet’ which includes an extended jam with E handing over his guitar to the 'security' guy at one stage to carry on with the riffing. Sound and image quality are good and the only complaint I have is that the six songs are over too soon.

Next are the CD’s. After three listens, I can report that there are no tracks that have me reaching for the skip button. That in itself is saying something about the consistency of this compilation considering that there are 50 tracks. There are great live and alternative versions of familiar songs such as ‘Novocaine for the soul’, ‘I Like Birds’, ‘My Beloved Monster’, and ‘Hospital food’ to name a few. Then there are some really weird offerings such as ‘Waltz of the Naked Clowns’ and ‘Jelly Dancers’. The firm favourite for now is the Moog Cookbook remix of ‘Novocaine For The Soul’. Also worth a mention is the fact that this compilation includes two covers of Prince songs, which one would not naturally associate as an influence on the Eels, but it all makes sense now (both actually coming from the same album ‘Sign O the Times’). But then who can be impervious to the influence of the Royal Purple Funkmaster?

Overall there is never a dull moment on this set of CD’s and as I hoped, it really does provide some deeper insight into E (I think it is time to order his autobiography from Amazon). They remain one of my favourite bands and hopefully there is a lot more where this comes from (I wonder if I should try to send a note to E warning him of the hazards of smoking those huge cigars he often pictured enjoying before he splutters out).