James - The Night Before

Formed in the early 80’s, Manchester band James achieved huge commercial success in the 90’s with songs such as Sit Down, Sound, Born of Frustration and She’s A Star. And although they split in 2001, the group reformed in 2007 to tour and release a new album Hey Ma. The Night Before is the first of two mini-albums the band plan to release in 2010, the second being titled The Morning After, currently expected in July. To record The Night Before the band worked virtually, recording and uploading their music to a ftp site, the whole thing being pulled together by producer Lee ’Muddy’ Baker. Once James have toured this month they intend to spend five days “to capture something spontaneous,” and play and record in a room together once more to create The Morning After.

With The Night Before the group rediscover the sound that put them at the peak of the sales charts in the 90’s. Songs such as Crazy with its chorus of “I’m not cra-a-azy, I’m just laughing at myself,” are top-notch trademark James tracks. Their music may not be particularly relevant now and is unlikely to see the band storming a new popularity, but these melodic songs, that sweep, soar and ebb in all the right places will please long-term fans immensely. No new tricks are present, but the argument is that if the magic was good, the wand is worth a further wave. At this stage in the game, most fans will be quite happy without any massive artistic progression as long as the songs are of quality.

A number of these tracks could quite easily find themselves cohesively sitting on the James album Seven, one of their biggest sellers. For example, Ten Below finds singer Tim Booth reminiscing on his younger years “I’m at the bottom of my bed, headphones on my head, John Peel show, feels ten below,” over a brooding, pummelling indie rock sound that seems designed for larger venues. Porcupine is also vintage James. Starting with a clicking electronic pulse, countryesque guitar underpins Booth's warm and soft voice before the song bursts out of its sleepiness with an arms aloft chorus halfway through. The only track that grates a little is Dr Hellier. Inspired by Booth’s hospitalisation for liver disease it takes a heavy handed approach lyrically comparing his body to Afghanistan and that his doctor said that “We can’t let the Taliban take over and breed.” This lyrical coarseness is a minor criticism though.

For those who loved James in the 90’s, there will be much on this record that will remind of times past and give a cheery rose tinted moment in the present. The only disappointment with The Night Before is that as a mini-album, it doesn’t last long enough.

Kitsune Maison 9

The danger of hitting the skip button on a compilation album is almost inevitable. By their multi-artist nature the likelihood of enjoying every track is incredibly low. Kitsune normally score higher than most with their electro-dance-pop releases and the latest instalment - number 9 in the series - continues this pattern, although with this edition Kitsune seem to be following rather than leading; a significant number of these tracks having already gained exposure elsewhere and there is nothing radically innovative or new about any of the songs on the record. The album is in places a little less full throttle than other Kitsune compilations, the label themselves describing it as ‘snuggly, peaceful and motherly.’ That is if your mother is the type who likes synths, studio trickery and danceable beats.

Diving in there’s the slow-flo jam of Belong by Ernest Greene, aka Washed Out, a sleepy-just-waking-up moment of distant lo-fi bass bliss which stretches lazily out over the opening of the album. Also hanging around you can find laptop dudes The Twelves having a tweak of Two Door Cinema Club’s Something Good Can Work, Arthur Baker bringing back his eighties street-sound electro dance clicks and beats to the elegant pop tune Wonderful Life by Hurts and Silver Columns hitting the perfect beat (boy) with their Bronski Beat disco rave-up Brow Beaten. All of these tracks and artists have been out there for sometime now, Kitsune bringing them all together as one happy family.

Elsewhere a number of the songs sound like they’ve jumped shipped from the glossier, funkier end of an early 1980’s Now That’s What I Call Music compilation. Gamble & Burke’s Let’s Go Together (which the Breaking More Waves I Tunes bizarrely names as Gamble & Prison) is a commercial blend of sugary r’n’b flavoured soul synth pop, the kind of song that could easily clog up the Radio 1 play list as it nods its head towards Hall and Oates and Lionel Ritchie. (Go ask your dad kids) Likewise the mellow vibe of The Phoenix Alive by Monarchy is classy piece cut from the cheeseboard of division one dancefloor disco pop.

Cooler Couleur by Crookers featuring Yelle is one track not to press skip on. A hot bassy carnival stomp of a track, it’s the kind of number that makes the so called hip bloggers proclaim phrases such as “This shit is one hot jam,” or other such nonsense, but with its distant sonic relationship to Paper Planes by M.I.A it’s easy to understand why. Elsewhere Berkshire’s The Good Natured seems to have thrown away the battered keyboard borrowed from lead singer Sarah’s grandmother to deliver something electronically sharper. Your Body Is A Machine is the sound of Dubstar partying on an iceberg with its chanting melancholy robopop sound. Mention must also be given to Fenech-Soler whose infectious Calvin Harris-hands-in-the-air jabbing synths on Stop and Stare may lack a little in the originality department, but manage to succeed as a whopping floor filler. If you file your CD's in alphabetical order this one slots neatly near Faithless and Friendly Fires.

With 18 tracks, it’s inevitable that even the most ardent of Kitsune fans will be tempted to hit the skip button a few times, but there’s enough here to keep the average electro-pop connoisseur happy and dancing around their bedroom in just their pants until volume 10 is out. Nothing earth shatteringly original here, but nothing dire either.

Kitsune Maison 9 is released on the 26th April 2010.

The B of the Bang - Art Deco EP

Following on from their acclaimed Planet Sound (R.I.P) revered 2009 album Beginning. Middle. End, UK south coast folk rockers The B of the Bang return with a new EP. Art Deco is a limited edition, numbered and hand-packaged four track EP that will only be available on the bands tour which starts today and calls at London, Cambridge, Preston, Liverpool, Newcastle, Portsmouth and finishes at The Hope in Brighton on the 9th of April. You can listen to one of the tracks from the EP, the Gallic sounding Film Noir exclusively below (until the band put the track up on their Myspace that is). With a virtually new line up of musicians, the song represents a significant departure for the group in so far as it is more upbeat than much of their previous material, complete with “Ooh La La” backing vocals and prominent almost chirpy accordion. However underneath there are still many elements of the trademark B of the Bang sound, from the baritone vocal to the hints of angry guitar noise trying to break out from underneath the wash. It’s all tastefully topped off with the bands knack of writing quality songs with just a little bit of an edge.

Get down to one of the gigs where The B of the Bang will be playing alongside the equally good Dawn Chorus, whose album we gave a big thumbs up earlier this year here and grab a copy of the EP. It could quite possibly be the best thing you do this Easter holiday - certainly better than stuffing chocolate egg in your face.

Film Noir - The B of the Bang by Breaking More Waves

Besti-Bod / DJ Hojo Hits

So depending on where you are in the world, the time for April Fool fun may still be with you or may have gone. Hope you enjoyed the Romanian Harvest film we put up earlier.

In a break from the norm we don’t have a ‘proper’ music blog today. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow. Instead we are going to refer you to another blog, that of our favourite UK festival – Bestival. This year a DJ collective known as DJ Hojo Hits and the Bestival Forum All-Stars will be taking to the Bestival stage, flying from all parts of the world (well, Texas, Scotland and the Isle of Wight at least) for a unique performance. Also jumping up to play will be eighties pop legend Howard Jones whose name and music ‘inspired’ DJ Hojo Hits. And who is DJ Hojo Hits ? Well, there is a very close relationship with this blog.

So for now, skip on over to the Bestival Blog and see who is this weeks ‘Besti-Bod’ by clicking here. All will become clear. There's also further info in a small feature here courtesy of Strong Island.