Swell Maps - C21 - Tiny Global Records
Jowe Head's latest incarnation of the Birmingham-formed art-rock collective reads like an 'indie' supergroup of sorts - Luke Haines (Auteurs), Dave Callahan (Wolfhounds), Chloe Herington (Cardiacs) to name but a few of the current live and studio line-up behind this first album in 45 years.
Still retaining the fuzz 'n' buzz of their earliest classics like Real Shocks and Let's Build a Car, they share a similar lineage with fellow Brummies Nightingales sporting a mixture of power-pop dressed up in full avant-garde regalia and bludgeoning off-kilter rhythms. Songs from original long-passed Swell Maps personnel make an appearance, ensuring that the true spirit of 1979 is retained. The gritty and quirky Johnny Seven and Tele Visions by Nikki Sudden are at complete musical odds to Epic Soundtracks' poignant piano-led ballad Jelly Babies (sung by new member Lucie) but all three are engaging enough.
C21 takes a while to warm up before one of the many highlights kicks into gear - From Head To Phones is an insistent whirling dervish co-write between another former (but living) founding Maps member David Harrington, while Water Ev'rywhere tells a cautionary tale of us humans' shameful treatment of our most valuable commodity. Completing the album's peerless second-half in a psychedelic blizzard of riffs and crushing beats is Au Rora, a fitting finale to what is a mostly triumphant and long overdue return. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆½
Fran Carlyon - Home Truths - YYZ Records
Essex-based Carlyon has been issuing melodic little acoustic vignettes for some time now, yet this is his first multi-platform streamable E.P.. It's worth the wait.
Hark back to an era when Cherry Red Records or Blanco y Negro would knock out lovely music like this for peanuts, yet here we are in what is a tough rancorous age and the least likely county in the UK serves up a complete antidote to all the madness. There's a hint of Durutti Column about instrumental Luna, while Ben Watt, Bon Iver or Roddy Frame might be impressed by the likes of opener Ten Years, Tripping Over My Heart or Lost. Simple yet effectively emotional.
It's when the keyboards drop that the songs take on a new sheen, all sad-faced without being weepy or icky, although one wishes our Fran would expand the ideas into 3-minute radio hits, just to see what would happen. And then the number one question on most decent peoples' lips pops up in the form of an unassuming near-instrumental - Does It Get Easier? With this E.P. and its more recent follow-up single Sometimes (They Just Fall Out Of The Sky) we can only hope so. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆½
Boards of Canada - Inferno - Warp Records
Rather than recreate the same old formula for their first studio set in 13 years, Scotland's BoC have again laid down the mantle for the future of the UK electronic music with another consistent set on a par with 2013's preceding double album Tomorrow's Harvest.
Inferno is an album that demands a complete listen from start to finish, from the admittedly unattractive opening prologue jingle Introit to the ethereal closing I Saw Through Platonia. It's an eddying collection of drifting electronica, sampled spiritual dialogue and minimal yet incisive beats that border on the subtle and pulsating. As cliched as this will sound, imagine a foreboding portentous soundtrack for a dystopian film set in the dusty outcrops of Tibet, the frozen extremities of Northern Norway or the bleak industrial wastelands of, say, Philadelphia or even Ellesmere Port - Inferno is that soundtrack. It fits in with anywhere, yet remains utterly unique.
And nowadays, there's plenty of similar competition that's creating not too dissimilar soundscapes and making a decent fist of it in the process. It's a healthy situation and long may it continue.
For Inferno though, the guitar makes a very subtle appearance across many of the pieces, so subtle it's hard to tell whether it's triggered from a synth or otherwise strummed - from the shoegazey single Prophecy at 1420 Mhz, through the arpeggios of Into The Magic Land and on to the strident Arena Americanada, there is a hint of twang here and there which is no bad thing.
There are at least two contenders for the Most Beautiful Tune award - Memory Death has a pretty little motif running throughout for sure, but it's You Retreat In Time And Space that wins it. Almost Eno-esque in melody (think Apollo), it could soundtrack future peaceful moonwalks.
Inferno isn't massively ground-breaking, nor does it need to be. It's just a terrific listen from start to end. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆½
Pye Corner Audio - More Songs About The Sun - Sonic Cathedral
Fast becoming the most prolific act in the world of synth-led creatives, PCA (aka Martin Jenkins) has unleashed album number 14 in just 16 years. And it's one of his best!
Now licensed through loveable shoegazey noiseniks Sonic Cathedral, the Pye Corner Audio sound currently employs the trippy guitar-tronics of one Andy Bell (whose work with Mark Peters has previously appeared on the same imprint to much acclaim). He's present on a handful of tracks, including the bold opener Euphoria and the woozy single Cycle - it's a perfect match.
Another important guest on the album is Scottish writer Ian Rankin, who narrates a darker-than-the-sun monologue on the album's key centrepiece The Breath Of Now. Much of More Songs About The Sun has an element of elation about it - not so with this piece with Rankin opining that "The dark won't take your hand and lead you home" and "Everything looks like a tunnel". This is what you pay your Pye Corner Audio license fee for.
As satisfying as pretty much anything Jenkins has created before, More Songs About The Sun takes its lead from the Balearic influences of the '80s and the so-called "intelligent techno" scene of the '90s, as well as future-proofing his own unique take on electronics. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆