Saturday, August 29, 2009

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

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All India Radio – A Low High (Inevitable / MGM)

Posted: 29 Aug 2009 05:09 PM PDT

A Low High

Over the last decade, Melbourne-based producer / multi-instrumentalist Martin Kennedy’s All India Radio, itself something of an ever-shifting collective helmed by Kennedy, has carved out something of a distinct, not to mention consistently prolific presence amongst the Australian downbeat electronic landscape. It’s something that to a certain extent has also been aided by the frequent use of All India Radio’s music in feature films such as Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’ and TV shows ‘One Tree Hill’ and ‘Bondi Rescue’ – indeed one can imagine All India Radio’s smooth downbeat fusion of electronic and instrumental elements being like candy to soundtrack producers looking to inject some additional atmosphere into a poignant screen scene. This sixth studio album from All India Radio arrives just one year on from 2008’s acclaimed ‘Fall’ collection and once again sees Kennedy collaborating with a cache of instrumentalists that includes The Triffids’ Graham Lee, recent Bad Seeds inductee Ed Kuepper and string arranger Jen Anderson (Pandora’s Box).

As with ‘Fall’, it’s Lee’s distinctive pedal steel guitar contributions that really colour much of the 13 tracks gathered here, with opener ‘Solstice’ emerging from swelling warm synth pads and the distant flutter of programmed beats into the sort of widescreen prog-rock tinged atmosphere you might associate with ‘Wish You Were Here’-era Pink Floyd. If ‘Black Satin’ even manages to conjure up the countrified seventies soft rock of The Eagles (in no bad way) with its twanging steel guitar chords and rich horns, ‘Intrigue’ meanwhile manages to twist the mood in a completely different direction that fuses ominous electronics with dark jazz noir elements in what’s easily one of the cinematic-sounding moments here. Elsewhere, the haunting ‘Under Moon’ delves further into ambience, sending ripples of delayed-out guitar fluttering beneath subtly placed electronics and distant, trailing brass, before ‘Lo Fi Groovy’ shifts the mood closer to ‘Endtroducing’-era DJ Shadow with its clattering, lazy hiphop beats and twanging ‘Midnight In A Perfect World’-esque melodic chords. In the end, you’re left with another characteristically strong album from the ever-prolific All India Radio, that’s likely to particularly appeal to fans of Decoder Ring’s similarly widescreen atmospheres.

Niobe – Blackbird’s Echo (Tomlab/Inertia)

Posted: 28 Aug 2009 09:46 PM PDT

German chanteuse Niobe is named for the Ancient Greek mythological character who was brought to ruin by Apollo and Artemis. She would pridefully boast at mothering 14 children compared to the relative infertility of Letos and her aforementioned twins. Our Niobe’s music links to the mythology in the strong, emotive nature of her voice, and in the hints at the depth and literariness of the entangled loyalties in her lyrics which, in the singer-songwriter tradition, is where much of the action on Blackbird’s Echo takes place.

Musically, the album is all over the place. Starting out with a couple of acoustic pop tracks, Niobe then veers through glitch, trip-hop, jazz-band kitsch, torch song and electronica, with mixtures of each always a possibility. What holds everything together is Yvonne Cornelius’ voice, in both uses of the word. Her timbre can act like a muted brass instrument, cutting through clearly. At times she can sound like a 1950s exotica queen, at others she is processed into a dark jazz mistress and at still others a subtle bluesy grit veers forth. “I told you/You have a gift/It was knowing how not to take life too seriously/You have a way of sitting back and looking at your silly worries/I know you…” she meanders, almost Nico-esque in ‘You Have A Gift’ and you cannot help but be drawn into the personal storytelling Cornelius unfolds. ‘Time Is Kindling’ pits shards of ricocheting television noise samples against self-evaluation – “What’s my expiration date?”. ‘Fever’ is not the Peggy Lee standard but explores some meandering 60s pop moods before settling into a cruisy shuffle. ‘Ava Gardener At The Swimming Pool’ is woozy oompah fusing sloppiness and prettiness at every opportunity. ‘Blue Wolf’ finishes with warm guitar drone fuzz and freaked out vocal effects.

Five albums into a career you might expect an artist to have settled into a niche. Niobe is taking no such comfortable options. She works as a bower bird, grabbing any sounds or styles that takes her fancy, then subjugating it to her consistent songwriting. Blackbird’s Echo is the attraction of the pop structure applied to the resonances of a century of diverse musical styles.

Adrian Elmer

at 6:06 PM