Decoy’s Completely Biased Non-Definitive Guide To Music

Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996)

Tortoise deserve a genre named after them. It would at least make things easier for the unimaginative fools (like me) who write about music. Then I could just say: ‘In 1996, Chicago band Tortoise released this landmark album of Tortoise music that took Tortoise in a new direction and changed the way people would think about Tortoise forever. Only Tortoise can play Tortoise the way Tortoise was meant to played.’ It wouldn’t make much sense, but it would be so much easier. Post-rock, Prog-rock, Alternative, Experimental, Electronica, Jazz, Krautrock…none of these terms really seemed to sum them up, even though there were undeniable elements of all those things in their music. The opening song “Djed” was an epic 20-minute long soundscape that evolved - much like humankind - out of the static slime, and grumbled along the ground on bass fins until it merged with the drums and took its first steps on Neu! legs. Then things were happening. By five minutes in, you were compelled to see where this new species of music was going. And it certainly is a journey of an album. A free-flowing wordless trek through the primordial ooze of avant-garde music, from John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, to Can and Faust, to Fripp & Eno, to Neil Young and the future Wilco, to Radiohead and Godspeed You Black Emperor! This sounded like something that was there in the background of all that music. Rubbing stones and sticks together, searching for that fresh spark. “Glass Museum” is a journeying raft on rough waves of slow-motion ocean, sailing off to find new land, and document the various species of life found there. “A Survey” makes camp in the darkness of unmapped forests and braves the night, while “Along the Banks of Rivers” finally heads for home with renewed perspectives, somewhat philosophical now of the fates (and double-edged prizes) that await those who venture into the unknown.

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Martina Topley-Bird - The Blue God (2008)

After hearing about 45 seconds of the opening track “Phoenix”, I was sold. If this song had Thom Yorke vocals you could tell people it was a song Radiohead forgot to put on the In Rainbows bonus disc. Or if Portishead hadn’t finally brought out their long awaited Third album, this would still have quenched our trip-hop/downtempo thirst. Although, The Blue God reminds me more of Dummy-era Portishead. So maybe if you spliced 2007 Radiohead DNA with 1994 Portishead DNA, you might end up with an album sounding a little bit like The Blue God. Who knows? I get carried away with nonsense. In 1996 Martina Topley-Bird guested vocals on Tricky’s acclaimed albums Nearly God and Pre-Millennium Tension, and released her debut solo album Quixotic in 2003. Her voice would suit many genres; she could be a pop singer, a jazz singer, a lounge singer, a blues singer, because all these styles somehow leak out in her tones. This is a great album to slap on if you’ve got friends coming around for drinks. This is a great album to slap on late at night and play poker to. This is a great album to slap on while you chop the veggies for dinner. This is a great album to slap on if you like Massive Attack or Air or Fat Freddy’s Drop or Thievery Corporation. This is great if you like a cocktail mix of sweet lullabies and smooth melodious lines with a twist of dark moodiness for atmosphere. I’m amazed this hasn’t become a far bigger album, because I think she has mass appeal, and is instantly likeable for the right kind of fans. But I also like the fact this album is sneaky, and working its mojo slowly. It’s not a ham-fisted album that is leaping down ears trying to impress anyone. It’s an album that is quietly sophisticated, and patient, and waiting to be heard some night when the proper forces align. Perhaps when the moon is full, illuminating the right moment like a blue god.

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Kate Bush - Hounds of Love (1985)

For me, and many a prog-rock aficionado the world over, Kate Bush was/is the ‘Cult Queen of Cool’ who became the unofficial premiere female artist in a very male-dominated genre. I know she was having success in the Pop sphere. From her first acclaimed album The Kick Inside (1978) with the single “Wuthering Heights” she was the crazy-dancing doyen of baroque-pop. But she was always an acquired taste. Some people couldn’t stand her. And this designation made us Prog-fans claim her even more. She seemed like one of us. Nerdy, literate, obsessive, out-of-step. And Kate seemed to celebrate her ‘otherness’. She went about making her own unique music, album after album. With Hounds of Love she brought her signature theatricality into a more modern context, utilising the technology of the time to help animate her vision in a broader setting. And it’s a (another) masterpiece. From the opening hit, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)”, we’re reminded this is a fearless artist who combines melody, rhythm and structure masterfully, and then matches it with ambitious concepts to achieve maximum results. Her vocal performances are brilliant, and the lyrics thoughtful & crafted, as usual. Only Kate Bush could/would write a song like “Cloudbusting” - sung from the perspective of (radical psychologist/inventor) Wilhelm Reich’s son, who watches his father in awe, and mourns his father’s imprisonment (never to see him again), inspiring him to tell his father’s story. And the second half of the album is a suite of songs that comprise a mini concept album about a woman lost and drowning in freezing waters. The song “And Dream of Sheep” is worth particular mention, coz it’s one of Kate’s most beautiful compositions. The sadness in the melody is heartbreaking, and the lyrics paint an image of calm release and dignified escape from suffering: “If they find me racing white horses/ They'll not take me for a buoy/ Let me be weak/ Let me sleep/ And dream of sheep”. The fear of dying is sublimated into a simple wish: “I can’t keep my eyes open/ Wish I had my radio/ I’d tune into some friendly voices/ Talking about stupid things/ I can’t be left to my imagination”. The remainder of the album is a swirling watery diorama filled with cut-up sounds, choppy rhythms and ambient chimes that play out like someone’s life flashing before their crying eyes. A great uncompromising album from a great unconventional artist.


By Decoy Spoon

If you want to hear/see any of the music reviewed by Decoy, visit the GritHouse – the GritFX YouTube Channel – and check out Decoy’s Playlist of music videos.

Decoy’s Completely Biased Non-Definitive Guide To Music

Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See (1993)

Mazzy Star are one of those bands that have a shadowy little corner of music history all to themselves. I imagine they’re still recruiting fans with their slow, sexy, scuzzed-up sound. They were never a popular band as such, but they were a serious cult band. And those bands just keep growing in status long after their official life is over. They were a little bit Velvet Underground, a little bit country, a little bit bluesy, a little bit folkie, a little bit gothic, a little bit psychedelic. But they blurred it all in to their own mix with songs of defeat and regret. They sounded loose and sad and listless and scarred. They sounded dreamily distant yet nakedly intimate. Out on the horizon, and under the bed-sheets. They sounded depressed but full of love. And it seemed perfectly fitting the singers name should be Hope. Because Hope Sandoval was the perfect siren for these songs—all she needed was a tambourine and a whisper, and you were hypnotised. And David Roback had the perfect plaintive guitar style. It was a seamless blend that chased away the light and revelled in the darkness that housed songs like: “Mary of Silence”, “Five String Serenade” and “Blue Light”. They enjoyed some success with the single “Fade Into You”, and it’s a great opener and sets the tone for the rest of the album—sleepy and stark and dusty and droney. And their shy influence is still recognisable in the music of Cat Power, Smog, Feist, Sparklehorse, and many other contemporary folkies, downtempo electronica and lo-fi indie rockers. Their albums are still great to listen to because their playing was timeless and seemed to exist outside the grunge parameters of the early 90s. They may have used feedback and distorted guitars, but in a totally different way to, say, Sonic Youth or Pearl Jam. And yet it was an album you frequently spotted in the collections of many grunge fans. Who would’ve thought that sunny California could produce a band that solemnly serenaded late night excursions into the jet-black void?

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William Orbit - Hello Waveforms (2006)

I’m not a real big Madonna fan, and one of William Orbit’s big claims to fame is his involvement with her acclaimed 1998 album Ray of Light. And long before that, he was quietly producing a series of albums that were plotting icy courses through the techno-whiteout of minimal 80s ambient electronica. I’d never heard of him when I came across this album, but I liked the cover, so I gave it a listen. And I’m glad I did, because this album has become one of my favourites when I’m in the mood for some mood music. It reminded me of Air, in their Moon Safari era. From the first song, “Sea Green”, this album sets a tone of synthetic tranquillity and spacey ambience, which I’m a sucker for. And things just kept getting better with the delicate twinkling of “Humming Chorus” and the faux-theremin weave of “Surfin’”. By the time it got to “You Know Too Much About Flying Saucers” with its ticking starbursts of guitar and vibes trailing through a cosy cosmos, I was proclaiming this one of the best albums I’d heard in years (NB: I’m always doing that though). Then came “Spiral” with the first (and pretty much last) taste of vocals on the album. The vocals are supplied by Kenna and the Sugababes and they marry beautifully—never breaking the stride of the album. The lyrics are nothing special, but you don’t really listen to the words. When the chorus comes: ‘Nothing’s really sane but everything’s amazing’, things could be getting a bit new-agey, but when Kenna sings: ‘Oh, the ground beneath us trembles and we fall’, the melody is enough to lift you away from any silly notions like definitive meaning - who cares what they’re going on about, lets go visit Jupiter! The earthiness of hearing voices actually punctuates the album nicely in the middle, and you soon go back into orbit (I guess, literally) to enjoy the rest of the ride with the primarily instrumental “Who Owns the Octopus?”. And it’s nice to hear the odd voice (whether real or vocoder) throughout the remaining songs with “Oooh’s” and “Aaah’s” reminding you this is, and you are, still human after all.

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Grace Jones - Nightclubbing (1981)

As a typical 80s kid, when I think of Grace Jones I think of the films A View to a Kill and Conan the Destroyer, and I remember thinking she was somewhere between sexy and scary. (Some 80s kids may even remember Vamp, but maybe not as many.) She was a striking presence on the screen, and she made a cool Bond villain and a cool sidekick to Arnie. But before her venture into film, she was making strides into the burgeoning disco scene in New York with albums like Portfolio (1977), Fame (1978) and Muse (1979). Despite a cult following among the gay community and the discophiles, the Jamaican model turned singer couldn’t really find a wider market for her brand of dance music. Her voice didn’t really suit straight disco. Then in 1980 she teamed up with (Island Records founder) Chris Blackwell and produced Warm Leatherette, which was a step in a new direction. Taking inspiration from New York’s new wave scene, and the flexibility of reggae, she channelled covers of songs by Roxy Music, Smokey Robinson, The Pretenders and Tom Petty with a sharp androgynous clamour that made people stop and take notice. This was weird, but kinda cool. And when she followed up with Nightclubbing, it finally showcased her strengths and skills as a vocalist and performer. This is a great record. “Walking in the Rain” comes creeping out of the silence, walking you down the dark wet streets of some desolate sci-fi burg, where people who look like Grace populate the local haunts and sell mysteries by the pound. I saw the clip of this song on Rage in the wee-hours one night, and I’ve been hooked on her music ever since. I couldn’t take my eyes or ears off her. The album is full of 80s synthesisers and robotic neo-disco beats, and its amazing how the phrasing of her deep voice sits on top and makes it all sound fresh and contemporary. The moment she sings a note - there is instant atmosphere. She leads you through these strange cyber-noir narratives like a private-dick reporting on her cases. It’s no wonder Roman Polanski used - her moody re-imagining of Ástor Piazzolla’s Argetinian classic - “I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)” in the film Frantic, because it sounds like a cinematic thriller in itself. With the brave invention and impressive performances Grace Jones found a musical identity that was, and remains, completely original.

By Decoy Spoon

If you want to hear/see any of the music reviewed by Decoy, visit the GritHouse – the GritFX YouTube Channel – and check out Decoy’s Playlist of music videos.