2pworth

Tag: post-punk

  • THE FRENCH KICKS: SWIMMING

    THE FRENCH KICKS: SWIMMING

    THE FRENCH KICKS

    SWIMMING

    Vagrant

    2008-05-20

    The trouble with not keeping in touch with old acquaintances is that they sometimes move on without you. They grow and form new opinions, new tastes, and new ways of expressing themselves. Then, when you finally catch up with them, they are barely recognisable. You find it hard to really fully get what it is that they mean. You forget what it was that you saw in them in the first place. The French Kicks first came to the attention of this reviewer around 2001 while they were promoting their Young Lawyer. Alan McGee (founder of Creation Records, sadly swallowed up by a corporation and Poptones, sadly defunct at the behest of Mr. McGee) had just signed them in the UK, and they were on the verge of becoming big news in the world of indie music. They completely owned the stage that night. Drummer and lead vocalist Nick Stumpf sat tall in centre stage, presiding over the audience. Their brand of quirky New York post-punk pop reverberated around a rather small but relatively well-attended and sweaty hall in an unheard-of British town.

    Flash-forward through time to 2008, and when we catch up with the French Kicks, the years have mellowed them. No strangeness there — time must take its toll on all things, after all. What is interesting is how they have changed. Swimming kicks off with all the quirk of a latter-day Talking Heads record. The opening track, “Abandon”, floats rather than swims from the speakers. The close vocal harmonies wash over the syncopated drum patterns and guitar parts. It has a dreamlike quality. Again, more like being in a floatation tank than in a swimming pool. There are no obvious hooks, but somehow through something akin to Chinese water torture, the song gets under your skin. Three songs in, and that Talking Heads feeling has firmly got a grip with “Carried Away”. This song could easily have been lifted from True Stories.

    Swimming tries hard — practically every song has a good beginning, middle, and end — but the parts in between do little to spark the imagination. The main problem is that the album appears to only have one solid idea for a song. Up-tempo drums, sound-effect-like guitar parts, and close harmonies with no hooks or catchy chorus to be found. The formula is repeated over and over, not unlike the aforementioned water torture. The result is unfortunately not something that instantly grabs you. As a listener you are constantly let down after a good set-up. For example, “Sex Tourists” starts well with a simple fat drum sound, heavy on the high hat, and then guitar and bass come in, both flattening out the groove. They are then followed by some of the wettest vocals ever committed to an album. This particular tourist would be asking for a refund. What may have been an attempt to sound languid and sexy just ends up sounding like an effort from a whiny teenager who needs to get a girlfriend.

    There are glimpses of earlier glories, “The Way You Arrive” and ” New Man” hint at the French Kicks’ post-punk quirkiness (if I may use such a lame expression), but what ruins the effect again is the falsetto vocal performance of Nick Stumpf. Swimming is a complex and layered record that instrumentally shines, but appears to swamp Mr Stumpf in the process. The production values of this record compete for primacy with the songs, and one cannot help but feel that the pudding has been somewhat over-egged. In the old days, the listener experienced a certain rawness when they put on a release by this New York outfit. This edge was still evident on the 2006 release Two Thousand, but is totally absent here. More is the pity.

    Swimming is really too damp to catch a spark, but could quite easily find a home nicely in the background somewhere of a candle lit wine bar or other chilled venue. For a band that showed so much fire and promise less than a decade ago, this is a great disappointment. In that short time they have moved on and grown up, and in growing up they have changed their priorities. People move on, and tastes that were once perfectly aligned with yours can jar, especially if you don’t keep in touch.

    This review was originally posted on popmatters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/the-french-kicks-swimming-2496156190.html
  • ROBIN GUTHRIE: CONTINENTAL

    ROBIN GUTHRIE: CONTINENTAL

    There is a certain tension coming from within this latest Robin Guthrie release. It seems on the face of it that Continental is just another ambient, collection of haunting melodies. The songs swirl and sweep like an abandoned shopping bag that has been caught by the wind. They hold the listener’s attention, as s/he waits for some other dramatic, unexpected event to take place. Sometimes it happens, and the bag swoops into the air with a vitality and expression that one does not come to expect from a discarded object. On other occasions, the unwanted container of tomorrow’s debris just sits there and does pretty much what one expects it to do. And still it holds the attention as if it were a traveller recounting a ghost story to an audience that have heard the tale oh, so many times before. After all, it is not the story that is important but the manner in which it is told.

    ROBIN GUTHRIE

    CONTINENTAL

    Darla

    2006-05-16

    This particular haunting tale is embellished to the point of distraction. However, there are no surprises here, nothing that jumps out at you, shocks you, or makes your heart pound. Every song, every step of the journey is told in a manner that Robin Guthrie has used on a good many of his recordings. It is the familiarity of the 10 tunes on Continental that is so discomforting. What makes this particular recording so spooky is that it is in fact haunted. The spectre of the Cocteau Twins drifts in and out of each expression; the absence of Elizabeth Fraser is to coin a cliché “conspicuous”. And this adds to the lost feeling that the music introduces in you. So is this release any more than karaoke Cocteau Twins, without a song sheet?

    Well … no. Continental doesn’t really try to be anything that it isn’t. There can be no claims of capturing new musical territory or of Guthrie pushing himself beyond what we all know him to be capable of. This is plain and simple, the Cocteaus sans voice. There are moments of trepidation, like on “Crescent”, where Guthrie rocks out on the guitar and adds some vocals. However, these are little more than backing vocals and never come close enough to the foreground to be considered anything else. Indeed, their inclusion only made my yearning for an impish female voice, making sounds that cannot be mistaken for words, even stronger.

    Where Guthrie does succeed is when he serves up material with more of an ambient-soundrack-for-a-future-film feel to it. Tracks such as “Last Exit” and “Pale” (coincidentally together at the end of the album) are truly beautiful even if they do sound a little like Bill Nelson. But when was that ever an insult?

    Overall, Continental really does retread very well worn territory for Mr. Guthrie. However, I am fairly certain that fans of his work would want nothing else. As for new converts, if you’re under the age of 30, or you lived in a vacuum (as in space, not a cleaning tool) in the 1980s, and have never encountered recorded artefacts of the Cocteau Twins, then you may well find this a good addition to your “chill out” section. If you fall into none of those categories, then it is likely that you may be nonplussed as to how this recording will enrich your life.

    This review was originally posted on pop matters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/robin-guthrie-continental-2495687716.html