Lady Of The Sunshine - Smoking Gun

Lady Of The Sunshine isn't, in fact, a lady at all. This is Angus minus Julia Stone. Yes, temporarily sans his sister, the Australian singer/songwriter has spread his creative wings and put to use any scraps of spare time during his tours by putting together his first solo album.

Things start in very familiar territory. The opening two tracks are sweet and gentle and could easily have slotted onto the Angus & Julia Stone album, so it is all the more surprising when White Rose Parade kicks in with its Zeppelin blues and yelled (yes, yelled) chorus. It is like nothing we have heard from Stone before. With this, the laid-back, sensitive Aussie who can make a girl swoon from a hundred yards, shows that beneath his affable exterior, he has a slightly darker side. It's a pleasing dichotomy.

After a couple tracks more in keeping with the & Julia side to his music (in which the strings of Big Jet Plane are especially lovely), the album's title track elbows its way in, all heavy and Black Keys-esque with distorted vocals and even, if I heard it right, a rogue f-bomb. "Wake up, you've got the blues," Stone appropriately sings on Kings Black Magic before taking things back down and ending the long-player with the wonderful, dreamy, Lady Sunshine.

Regardless of whether he is opening up his lungs or barely whispering, the fact remains that Stone's voice is just beautiful. Smoking Gun is loyal enough to his well-established sound to please existing fans and also enough of a departure to prove Angus Stone to be an interesting and diverse artist. A success indeed.

The Bianca Story and Temper Trap at Magnet, Berlin

THE TEMPER TRAP
THE BIANCA STORY
Magnet, Prenzlauerburg, Berlin

It was an evening that would, kinda inevitably, end with two stony-faced men dressed in black - one smoking - playing cold, minimalist electronic pomp. This was, after all, Berlin. Before stereotypes took hold though, two foreign acts would play sets that made the smallish crowd dance their little German socks off.
Boasting a keyboard/synth/laptop/sampler/nondescript-mad-electro-invention set-up that engulfed half the stage, The Bianca Story (above) vomited forth whopping great big choruses. These five weirdos from Switzerland were led by the twin vocals of a super enthusiastic, tall beardy man with a voice like The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon and a girl dressed like an 80s prom queen and wielding a keytar. And if that isn't a recipe for awesomeness, then I don't know what is.
I've written enough gushing words about Temper Trap's (above and top) live shows on these pages recently, but suffice to say this was another winning set. Their sound seems to get more and more imposing every time I see them. The four-way vocal barrage of Down River was a perfect example of this. After a familiar set-list and a typically tighter-than-a-duck's-bumhole performance, the quintet packed up and headed to the Amsterdam to continue promoting the upcoming release of their debut record. Expect a review of it here soon.

Back soon....

Apologies for the lack of updates of late. I am currently in Berlin, having spent the last couple of weeks in Santander and Frankfurt. I am laptopless.

Normal service will resume next week though, with some more reviews, including the new Regina Spektor album (arggh, I'm too excited) and Lady Of The Sunshine.

In the meantime, here is some genius to keep you entertained. Sorry about the douche at the beginning.

Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications

Britpop was a strange spell for music in Blighty. At the time it seemed like a wonderful celebration of a new dawn in the country - unapologetic and exciting. Looking back though, it was actually narcissistic, coke-fuelled and wrapped in hideously brash lad-culture. However, while the likes of Blur and Oasis disappeared up their own arses during this time, there was one band whose album (Different Class) connected perfectly with the life of the underdog, the indie underclass who avoided Loaded in favour of Melody Maker. It shouldn't have been surprising that Pulp came out of that era with more credit than most. They had already been around for donkeys' years and, in Jarvis Cocker, had a captivating frontman who wrote stories that were gritty, witty and true. While others concerned themselves with big houses in the country, Pulp's world was one of bedsits with piss-stained lifts.

Over a decade on, Cocker is still telling such stories, now as a solo artist. His first album, The Jarvis Cocker Record, went down a storm with critics, so it is with much excitement (especially to a reviewer like me who considers the man close to Godlike) that Further Complications lands. Despite looking beardy and distinguished on the cover, the album takes on a raucous, occasionally Stooges-esque direction. Fitting to this reproach, legendary grunge producer Steve Albini was brought on board. Anyone who knows about Albini will be aware that crashing drums and big guitars are part of his game-plan, while vocals stay low down in the mix.

And, if there is a problem with Further Complications, it lies here. Rather than being complimented by the turned-up-to-eleven sound, Cocker's genius wordplay is often drowned out, as he finds himself yelling just to be heard. While I'm sure songs like Pilchard and Angela will be fantastic fun played live with Cocker shuffling his gangly frame across the stage, all arms, legs and glasses, on record they just seem to lack the nuances that make him such a revered songwriter. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the album's high points all occur when the noise abates (and the sax solos are nowhere to be heard), like the beautiful Leftovers, which is a love song that perhaps falls closest to his This Is Hardcore-era Pulp days. Viced by reality, yet painfully fragile, he croons: "Trapped in a body that is failing me/Well, please allow me to be succinct/I wanna love you whilst we both still have flesh upon our bones/Before we both become extinct." There is more gorgeous wordplay on I Never Said I Was Deep, where he tells us, "I never said I was deep/but I am profoundly shallow/My lack of knowledge is vast/and my horizons are narrow."

When Further Complications is good, it's great, and the fact that it's slightly disappointing in places is probably just down to the high standards that Cocker has set himself. And if there is a lesson to be learnt here, it's that when you have as much to say as Jarvis Cocker and can say it so eloquently, you shouldn't go drowning it out. Cocker's is a voice that needs to be heard.

Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You

Sometimes, an album comes out of the blue and belies all preconceptions. Alright, Still, Lily Allen's debut, was one such record. On the surface, a collection of bubblegum pop songs from the daughter of odious celebrity ligger Keith Allen didn't appear to be worth bothering with, but, upon closer inspection, it burst with wit and honesty (not to mention radio-friendly, ska-influenced tunes) in its stories of the trials of modern life. It was like a breath of fresh air, and certainly one of the albums of 2006. Following that unexpected gem, Allen's new album is burdened by the considerable weight of expectation.

Though Allen is truly now a marketable pop star with an army of teenage fans to cater for and record company sales forecasts to deal with, It's Not Me, It's You stays pretty loyal to the uncompromising nature of her debut. Swear words are still unapologetically littered throughout and she deals with issues that other pop acts wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. While subtlety is sometimes absent as she wallops us over the head with her words, her occasionally overt morality is still applaudable and there is pleasing wry commentary. Opening track Everyone's At It is a lament to drug taking, while The Fear offers lines that are equally straightforward and knowing digs at the culture of celebrity: "I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless/Cos everyone knows that’s how you get famous." There are other acerbic moments, like the line-dancing Not Fair, which treads the familiar ground of a lover's ineptitude in bed.

Even though there is nothing on It's Not Me, It's You to match the quality of the best parts of Alright, Still, it is still a slickly produced album of catchy-as-fuck pop, and Lily Allen's personality shines through enough for her to to easily leap the Difficult Second Album hurdle. One gets the impression that, if you went for a beer with her, you would encounter exactly the same cheeky, witty, gutsy, truthful character you hear in her songs. For a mainstream pop star, Lily Allen is as genuine as they get.