Review round-up: Sigur Rós, Ratatat and Black Kids

Time for a little new(ish) album review round-up wrap-up dealie. Reviews of the new Beck album, laid-back indie folk The Fairline Parkway, and the 02 Wireless festival to come this week too (if you’re lucky)!

Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
XL Recordings

Ooh, now this is good. While those Sigur Rós have never been Smiths-level depressing, their epic sound has always had a sense of melancholy, conjuring up images of desolate Icelandic landscapes (or slow motion wildlife footage, if you watched BBC One at all last year). Their new album is a lot more upbeat, and the epic-ness has been toned down - from Lord of the Rings level to, say, Willow - with the opening track featuring some Rodrigo Y Gabriela-style foot-stomping and some just-on-the-right-side-of-good (ie not Keane) piano smacking.

We do get some of the orchestral ballads as well, mind - including the nearly ten-minute “Festival” - and the sumptuous final track “All Alright” which - get this - is actually sung in English! What a novelty.

Ratatat - LP3
XL Recordings

Well, Messrs Stroud and Mast aren’t going to get any points for originality on their thrid outing, follwing the promising-but-lacklustre self-titled debut and the rather good, but rather repetitive Classics. We’ve still got the exact same guitar sound, the little flirts with world music… and they’ve still got the hip-hop Kraftwerk thing going on (i.e they’re ultra repetitive, but it sounds kinda alright). Unfortunatley, this failure in developing their sound makes you wonder; what’s the point in buying the album, if it’s the same as the other two?

Even the fact that one of the songs - “Mirando” - has a music video of the song set to scenes from Predator can’t save the imaginitivley-titled LP3. I guess you could buy it, if you’re a big Ratatat fan; otherwise, you could just put Classics on shuffle and pretend that the altered tracklisting makes for a different album (which is pretty much what the band have done, only they’re trying to charge you for it).

Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
Mercury Records

Isn’t it nice when one of those overhyped bands actually records a half-decent record? For every MGMT-style disappointment, it seems, there’s a Black Kids-style success. Full of the dancey, falsetto-vocals, slightly eighties charm heard one those Wiazrd of Ahhhs demos - only brightened up, courtesy of producer Bernard Butler (this just about makes up for him being pretty much responsible for flash-in-the-pan Welsh “soul singer” Duffy) - with the wispy guitar, funky Talking Heads base, squelchy keyboards and Ronettes-style female backing vocals all mixing together into a damn fine album.

About time for the backlash then. I’m all set with my “I liked them before they were popular!” argument once “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You” becomes an invetiable chart hit (it better!)

The Life and Times of S. Carter; or, why Jay-Z is the only good Glastonbury headliner, and Noel Gallagher is an idiot pt 2

Jay-Z knows how to respond to criticism with class; rather than acting like a baby, he just sampled Noel Gallagher’s “hip-hop isn’t right for Glastonbury” sound clip, and then covered Oasis’ “Wonderwall”, before launching into a rousing, AC/DC-sampling “99 Problems”.

Oh, and reportedly he got a bigger crowd than Kings of Leon. Ha!

Watch the whole set on BBC

The Life and Times of S. Carter; or, why Jay-Z is the only good Glastonbury headliner, and Noel Gallagher is an idiot

Where’s the love?

Tonight sees hip-hop superstar Jay-Z headline the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury. Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, is a man who has sold over 50 million albums worldwide, released 10 albums in 12 years, owns and runs both a record label and a clothing line, has kick started the careers of now-superstars such as Kanye West, and has most recently been devoting a large portion of his time to charity work.

And yet, because he doesn’t produce “guitar music”, Oasis frontman and famous talker of bollocks Noel Gallagher has said that poor Mr Carter isn’t “right” for the festival, and neither is any hip-hop (despite the fact many hip-hop acts, such as De la Soul, The Roots and Cypress Hill have all performed at past festivals). Which, in keeping with previous spoutings from the Gallaghers, complete shite.

I suppose Noel thinks Kings of Leon, who headlined last night, are more deserving of playing? Sure, they’re basically a flash-in-the pan, flavour-of-the-month boring indie-rock band who’ve only released two mediocre albums and contributed absolutlety nothing to their respective genre, but at least they play guitars. Same with recently-reformed, should-have-stayed-apart The Verve, who headline tomorrow. Is that the same Verve whose only good song relies on, mainly, a sample of another piece of music (a common practice in the realm of hip-hop)?

And Noel himself is known for borrowing (read: ripping off wholesale) riffs from bands such as The Beatles - a band he and his group idolise (read: rip off wholesale), and who helped pioneer the use of tape loops with songs like “Strawberry Fields Forever” which, among other things, paved the way for…well, sampling. Not to mention, as they went on, The Beatles actually used less and less the traditional drums, guitar, bass set-up.

Aaaaaanyway, back to Jay-Z. As it says above - he really is the only good headliner at this year’s Glastonbury festival, although unfortunatley most of the idiot-NME reading demographic won’t realise this. Which is a shame, as they’ll be going back to their tent with a Ting Tings CD or other such shit instead of listening to the joyous, Bobby Bland-sampling “Heart Of The City (Ain’t No Love)”, the rocking (and Rick Rubin-produced) “99 Problems”, or more recent fare from his return-to-form American Gangster album.

Sure, Hova can be arrogant, boasting, and occasionally lapses into some gangsta cliché and misogny - but it’s a hell of a lot better than what passes for modern hip-hop of a similar “style” - I’m looking at you, 50 Cent - and, unlike acts like 50 Cent, Jay-Z actually did do most of the illegal activities he sings about, for better or for worse - it isn’t just gangsta posturing; but, when the music and wordplay is so sharp, you can look over these little niggles.

Modern, young “hip” music fans need to get over their snobbery and, aruguably, latent racism over hip-hop and rap (or just black music in general); put down the (insert stupid band name here) albums, pick up some Jay-Z, some Nas, some Kanye West - you’ll find music that’s infinitley more interesting, lyrically and sonically, than the dreary guitar-based rock put out by bands like…well, Oasis, for one. Kings of Leon and The Verve for another couple.

Download “Heart Of The City (Ain’t No Love)” from The Blueprint
Download “Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)…” from American Gangster

Buy Jay-Z’s albums on Play.com