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Imagine a lo-fi, countrified, battery-operated Portishead. Right? Easy. Now, add a dusting of insouciant Damon Albarn (bear with me), the alt-rock nursery-rhyme quality of Eels, and, finally, a seasoning of late 80s/early 90s synth-pop.
Got that?
Possibly not. But I've made one point, at least: Ultralash is quite an unusual-sounding outfit.
Lads' mag alt-folk?
It's an odd name, for starters. Ultralash! Here in the UK, at least (I know not how universal the slang phrase "on the lash" may be), it could pass for the title of a lads' mag, or an 'edgy' Channel 4 documentary focusing on underage drinking and club culture. I have to say that the sound of this record is nothing like my idea of a band called Ultralash. Which is not - I might add - necessarily a bad thing.
This is an experimental album - not trendy, not a la mode. Its roots are in American folk - but this record is 'folk' in its broadest, least generic sense. The slightly ramshackle, rough-edged juxtapositions of electronic and acoustic elements - trundling samples against fingerpicked guitar - is suggestive of the alt-country genre. I hear echoes of Grandaddy's fascination with organicised technology (although Ultralash is sparser, far less lush and accessible) and, more distinctly, of Sparklehorse - particularly the use of distorted, choppy mechanical loops, and the practice of interspersing short, sample-based interlude tracks amongst the album's longer songs.
Avoiding the cliches
For a record with its heart in folk/country, Foamy Lather avoids just about every potential cliche of the genres. Often, vocals take a subordinate role in these songs: sketchy, distant in the mix, effects-laden and detached. At times, reminiscent of PJ Harvey's excellent White Chalk. Unlike White Chalk, though, this is a beat-suffused album. The dirty, roomy kit sound of opener 'Like a Daisy' is meaty and confidently simple: alongside the distorted, off-key bass, it's the backbone of the track, rather than a nuanced accompaniment. Rhythms, samples and loops frequently and emphatically take centre-stage.
Indeed, it's not until the fourth track - the rather lovely 'Dayglow' - that we hear Karry Walker's vocals mixed clean and upfront. It's an affecting, versatile voice, and the performance eloquently captures the weary quality of the song. I'm glad she made us wait three tracks for it.
Noncommittal Modernism - slaloming from melancholia to noise
Foamy Lather's songs are often explorations of single ideas and motifs, rather than complex, crafted entities. Development tends to be in arrangement and performance rather than built into the songs' structures. The impression is of a fragmentary work - slaloming from acoustic melancholia to collages of mechanical noise. There's something Modernist about it all - rather TS Eliot ("a heap of broken images") - and the listener is quite deliberately (it seems to me) left to make sense of the bizarre juxtapositions and extreme, sudden shifts in tone and colour.
All of which, of course, makes it a difficult record about which to make general observations. I might call it sparse in nature - but then I think of the burst of lushness (strings, vocal harmonies, dirty drums) towards the end of 'Girl On Girl'. Listening to the pitch-bent, woozy near-bitonality of 'Whiskey Sour', I might call it obscure and capricious ... Or apathetic, wry and remote, with the Blur-like, "can't be bothered" vocal inflections of 'Turn Me On'. And then I stumble upon a gem of heartfelt sincerity - the nostalgia-tinted, melancholic 'Bury Me' - that knocks my carefully-assembled adjectives into disarray. It's enigmatic, then - and eclectic. And challenging. In the best way. Provocative.
Sugary platitudes + chauvinism
Which brings me to the song I've chosen to feature: 'World Of Suck'. Bearing the above paragraph in mind, it may need not be said that there's no representative track on this album - no neat encapsulation of the Ultralash sound. But I think 'World Of Suck' illustrates what I (perhaps pretentiously) think of as the band's noncommittal modernism. Again, carried by a weighty beat (heavily distorted - bit-crushed - kit), it's a poker-faced 'Nothing Compares 2 U' (Sinnead O'Connor's version) for the 00s - its lyrics juxtaposing sugary romantic platitudes with intense chauvinism:
You're cute Nice rack Not fat What's that? You're fine I can really talk to you.
It's a brilliantly unsettling song: by turns comical and dark, impenetrably delivered. Again, I'm reminded of PJ Harvey - in spirit and fearlessness more than in sound.
Investigate: visit the Ultralash website
Beth Gibbons has an excellent, extraordinary voice.
This does not mean "she sounds nice when she sings"; "she has the 'voice of an angel'", or "she'd do a mean aria".
It means: she sings, and you listen. She sings, and she communicates. In my view, she has one of the most distinctive, affecting, expressive voices in modern music. (What a horrible phrase - "modern music".) Listening to her sing after any number of 'cool', 'trendy' vocalists, there really is (for me) a sunlight-breaking-through-clouds sensation. A fascinatingly three-dimensional voice, heavy with real, complex, organic emotion. Not a trace of artifice or empty posturing.
What do you do with a voice like that? If you're Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley (the other two members of Portishead), you throw it into relief. I've always found Portishead compelling because of the brilliantly-managed contrast between vocals and arrangements/instrumentation/production. And on Third, the contrast is starker than ever: listening to these songs might put one in mind of an exotic bird, enclosed in a stainless steel cage. Even on the more analogue, retro-tinged numbers, there is a pervading iciness and detachment to the arrangements. When, on previous records, beats and samples may've been infused with the warmth of vinyl, on Third, they're stripped to their raw essentials. The uncompromisingly mechanistic rhythms of 'Machine Gun' exemplify this quality at its most extreme - but even the more 'rounded', woody instrumentation of songs such as Nylon Smile sounds filtered, cold - desaturated. As if bathed in fluorescent laboratory lighting. Sounds may be treated with copious delay - but they reverberate in bleak, unfurnished spaces: cold, hard.
There's always been something 'designery' about Portishead - a strong aesthetic sensibility. And the combination of Gibbons' vocals with these arrangements is like the sonic equivalent of complimentary colours: a vibrant, powerful shade against a strongly contrasting backdrop that serves only to maximise its impact.
Third is to Portishead what Kid A was to Radiohead. The two records - to my ears - share a striking degree of similarity. But Third is the better album: Gibbons' performances are the more mature and weighty than Thom Yorke's.
And I'd go further - to say that this is Portishead's best album. Like its predecessors, it's aesthetically uncompromising. But, this time, it's that bit more convincing; more substantial; bolder in its juxtapositions and contrasts, yet hanging together absolutely unquestionably as a unified whole. There are few concessions to the easy listening, coffee-table crowd, as we might've predicted.
... But this is, nevertheless, a hugely dramatic record, and certainly not the po-faced affair the above might suggest. 'Plastic' is a standout track, with its stuttering, stammering drum fills and tape warbles. When the bass kicks in, the power is huge - somewhat reminiscent of the climax to Radiohead's 'Exit Music [for a film]' (high praise indeed). And 'We Carry On' and 'Machine Gun' (masterfully separated by the breath of fresh (if still sanitised, hospital) air that is the Inkspots-tinted 'Deep Water') are shapely and mesmerising, despite their repeating, insistent, inhuman beats.
Flaws? Only one, really - that lyrics just occasionally veer into the realm of the slightly banal and cliched. I'm not, personally, convinced by lines such as "wounded and afraid inside my head", which are a little too much like the blandly extreme soundbites of MySpace emo kids for my liking. That said, my gripe is tiny - as there are also some incredibly memorable lyrics - notably, the closing "I never had the chance to explain exactly what I meant" of 'Nylon Smile'.
This is an album that demands space and engagement. On headphones - or played loud through a good stereo - Third is certainly no less immersive and atmospheric than its predecessors - even though it may lack their broad appeal. This is a brilliant album, and one which I recommend without hesitation to a listener drawn to a highly defined aesthetic - intrigued rather than deterred by a certain degree of austerity.Comments
May I just say that the deftness of your reviews is increasingly impressive with each new exposé of an artist's work? -- I for one believe that Portishead belongs to those bands who are not afraid of embracing an austere and sometimes bleak aesthetic. (It's redolent of some of Ferdinand Léger's work in my opinion: stark lines and at times colourless constructions which require some focus to get into).
The album is very imaginatively described. By that I mean you've managed to conjure images which speak directly to the reader and would-be listener of Portishead. Thanks for making me want to listen to P3.
Great review Cog. You have quite an eloquent way w/the written word. And 'Third' is truly wonderful. It seems we have a consensus on it, you can read my review here.
Excellent review. This captures almost exactly how I feel about this album. Portishead made an album that will last for decades this time, and maybe now people can finally stop using the words "dinner party" and "Portishead" in the same sentence.
Vetiver's new record, Thing of the Past, is out on 13 May. Unlike the band's previous two albums, this one is not built around original material, but is a collection of cover versions.
Perhaps fittingly (given this fact, and the album's title), it's a nostalgia-tinged collection, infused with gentle melancholia and a slight weariness. The majority of the songs are slow to mid-tempo, steady, acoustic-based - and arrangements are subtle, sometimes minimalistic tapestries, in which textures and moods are more important than drama and narrative.
This is a well-recorded and produced collection. The instrumental performances (which are often extremely fine: never showy, accomplished in their restraint) are stylish and well-captured, and the production matches the performances and songs in terms of subtlety and lightness of touch.
I have some difficulty, though, approaching Thing of the Past as an album. In some ways, I'm more inclined to see it as a mix-tape - in which half of the interest is in the song choices, rather than the songs themselves. The spirit of the collection is not radically reinterpretative (like Tori Amos, say, in Strange Little Girls), so there is a certain difficulty in actually identifying the point of it. The record is somehow bereft of a centre, of a unity. This manifests itself in obvious ways - say, the fact that the three consecutive tracks 'To Baby', 'Road To Ronderlin' and 'Lon Chaney' seem incongruously to have roots in a different genre, infused with 60s pop, rather than the folksy americana of the rest of the album. But - on a deeper level - the record feels as though it lacks a narrative. Listening to it, one would be hard-pressed to say what Vetiver were about, as a band.
In this sense, perhaps, it's a very modest work - self-effacing. These covers seem respectful, reverent. Which perhaps contributes to this sense that one is listening to a personally-compiled mixtape.
As a collection, then, it's rather interesting. But - from an album - I want something overarching. I want a journey. And this record fails to deliver anything of the kind. Despite repeated efforts, I've been unable to pin an identity upon it - and am unable to consider its songs as part of any larger whole. For this reason, I reluctantly consider it - despite sensitive performances and tasteful production - a failure.
... And there are some lovely details to enjoy: the brushed drums and shimmering clean guitars of 'I Must Be In A Good Place Now'; the crunchy blues of 'Blue Driver' ... But the fine detailing is let down by a lack of conceptual direction.
A good many of these songs, in fact, would make welcome appearances on a 'shuffled' playlist. But, ultimately, I feel little attachment to them in their collected form.
Comments
Hmmm...from what I understand bands do covers records for a lot of reasons, to fill the space between proper records, to explore ways of changing their sound, to pay tribute to influences, to get on tape things they've done live...etc. etc.
I can't think of any covers on Vetiver's regular albums, and I know that people in the band are extremely knowledgeable about sixties folk and pop...why not a covers album?
I think their coverage of blues, pop and country actually explains a lot about how they got from the self-titled (pretty much pure folk) to You May Be Blue (more of a Laurel Canyon pop kind of a thing). And you know, doing an Ian Matthews song and a Michael Hurley song, it kind of gives you a road map for how they arrived at where they are.
Hi Jenny ... Thanks for commenting.
Yes, I think what you say is true. And I certainly see the appeal of the covers album in the sense you describe. I guess I'm coming at it, though, from the angle of one who's not actually looking for a roadmap. I'm looking for a self-contained work, and that's the spirit in which I tried to review the album.
You say "to fill the space between proper records" -- and I think that sort of hits the nail on the head. I find this an interesting record. But I don't think it's a proper record. It doesn't stand on its own. And that's why I am not convinced by it.
For a Vetiver fan, though - and for someone who's simply looking for a good collection of songs - I think it's very interesting and rewarding. But I reviewed it - as I tend to - as a standalone work, rather than as a key to understanding the band ...
A thought-provoking review as always. Thank you for sharing your impressions with us.
These days, it seems to be more often than not the case that artists take on a covers album to respect a production quota of some sort.
I'm not sure about Vetiver but Cat Power has quite clearly made her point by entitling hers "Jukebox" which plays like a shuffled playlist or mixtape than a proper constructed work.
Then again I think it's easier to be complacent both for the artists and the listeners or to acquiesce the covers album as pop music requires less coherence than any other art form such as classical music or poetry. It would be quite hard to imagine a florilegium built on a whim but it's not so much of stretch to mix Hank Williams with Robbie Williams.
Comments
It's different, which means I like it.
"Noncommittal modernism" could have been coined by Ezra Pound. In fact, your description of Ultralash's album recalls vorticism to an extent. Which is to say that it could have existed anywhere else but in England.
There is also an ironic stance which is evident in the song you chose. Chauvinism is turned upside down by the female vocals. "Nice rack" could very well be a lesbian idea of courtship, I don't know.
Thanks for pandering for the ambivalent music lovers