Brightest Young Things

By Gareth Moore

I have no desire to dissect what music meant in 2010, nor do I care to cover all of the material that was released this year. My aim is to illuminate the special bands, albums, and songs that you have yet to hear (although surely some of you have heard a few of them). In some cases the artists are new and may become big names in the future; in other cases they already receive ink in Europe but little in the states. Each of them has managed to earn multiple plays during my musical year. Some of them have grown into consuming love affairs. Do not be confused: this is not a best of the year list. This is one person reviewing the sounds he believes should be heard by a wider audience.

FLORRIE

I remain incapable of resisting Florrie. She crafts pop of the highest-order: big sounds, bigger hooks, stylish, exciting, and FUN. But wait, it gets better. It gets so much better. Before I had even heard her music I was already in awe of her after reading her resume. The following is taken from The Guardian:

“She has been Xenomania's house drummer since 2008, playing on Girls Aloud's The Promise, Alesha Dixon's The Boy Does Nothing, and Pet Shop Boys' Yes album. Having studied Music Technology, she knows about programming and remixing and has worked the controls at Xenomania HQ for the likes of the Saturdays, plus she writes music and lyrics. That's three careers right there: drummer-for-hire, writer-producer, and pop performer in her own right.”

She’s also a model.

And yet, it still gets better! Rather than jumping into the label game too soon she chooses to remain unsigned. She is taking time honing her craft, working with other savvy minds like Fred Falke and her colleagues at Xenomania, and releasing all of her music for free on her website. This way she can feel free to experiment and build a fan-base on her own without a record label breathing down her neck. Perhaps best of all, 20 out of the 25 Florrie tracks I’ve heard are absolutely smashing.

The strange twist is that, so far, most of these songs are in remix form. Although Fred Falke, Justin Faust, Def Starr, and Jaxon have done a cracking job with her songs, her fans are still wondering what Florrie’s music will evolve into. I get the impression she is using this period to learn all she can from her remixes in order to discover what she likes the most. What’s important is that when you strip away the songs to the bare bones you still have infectious hooks and her seductive voice.

Recently she released her first e.p. sans remixes, just her songs. Lead single Give Me Your Love was available months ago but it remains a delectable treat. Although Call of the Wild and Summer Nights have their pleasures, Left Too Late is the jewel in this crown. It sounds like Girls Aloud at their very best, except Florrie has a more appealing voice and the production is more focused.

Whether or not Florrie’s music becomes an adventurous mind-fuck a la Girls Aloud or simply solid pop music remains to be seen. All that matters is that I have been listening to her for five months now, loving every second, and I will continue to do so.

Some choice tracks:

• Call 911 (Fred Falke remix)
• Panic Attack (Def Starr remix)
• You Wanna Start Something (Fred Falke remix)
• Give Me Your Love
• Left Too Late

KATIE MELUA VS. SPARKS – A Happy Place

Speaking of adventurous mind-fuck, this song should be nominated for the Most Bat-Shit Crazy Song of 2010. The madness in question has nothing to do with Melua; her music is bland and forgettable. However dull her music may be, there is something intriguing about the melody to A Happy Place. It reminds me of a triumphant show-stopping Broadway musical number, except she fails to achieve this idea. Perhaps this is what Sparks also heard in her song; their music has always sounded like a frantically demented musical gone awry (and they always sound like that no matter which genre they explore...and they have explored nearly all of them). If any band could give Melua’s poor original song the proper makeover it’s Sparks.

And what does the final product sound like?: A booming choir, a synthetic orchestra, a carnival, a touch of heavy metal guitars, pulsating electro, new lyrics, melodies, and vocals from Russell Mael, drama in every second and, at 2:33, it becomes apocalyptic . It’s a bombastic ode to the end of life and the beginning of the next one...at least that’s what it sounds like in my mind.

This is my favorite type of remix: one artist surrenders their vision to another, and the remixer creates an entirely new song while adding their own signature. Any Sparks fan could see their fingerprints all over it. It’s absolutely mad, as is their greatest music. Has any remix in 2010 sounded like this? Has any remix ever sounded like this?

FACTORY FLOOR

A general consensus has been formed: Factory Floor is as mysterious as their shows are punishing. I have read live reviews that left critics gobsmacked by their muscle, and their dazzling drummer, yet baffled by their music. FF has been creating lengthy songs that build upon aggressive rhythms and heavy beats that they eventually fragment only to construct something wholly new by the end. Is it rock, disco, industrial, experimental, acid, post-something? It’s confusing.

Speaking of confusion, they have acquired a passionate fan: Stephen Morris, the drummer from Joy Division and New Order. He remixed their song Wooden Box and has since been producing some of their new material. None of this will be surprising after you hear them. Morris admitted that they remind him of New Order’s early days. One connection I find impossible to ignore is how FF’s drummer is as hypnotic a performer as Morris. As I watched a brief clip of their show at a Rough Trade record shop the drummer moved with a precision, speed, and dexterity that I rarely see.

Since the band has already managed to open for Wire and the Horrors, was asked by Portishead to play their ATP festival, inspired obsessive love from the writers of The Quietus website, and have Morris in their corner, there is a good chance 2011 will see them rise in the public’s consciousness. All that matters to me is that a band can be simultaneously confounding and enthralling. This is a rare thing.

ANNA CALVI

This young girl already has three major champions: Brian Eno, Nick Cave, and Jarvis Cocker. I probably don’t have to bother making an argument now, but I will because she deserves it based solely on her scintillating debut single, Jezebel. Opening with tribal drums and a group of beasts chanting the name of the heroine in question, these sounds suddenly vanish and are replaced with some fast guitar. The charging rhythms crash into the song again, but a powerful voice howls above the fray. Anna sounds unlike any modern signer I’ve heard. The perfect evidence of this comes during the grand finale; the final seconds feature the music disappearing and Anna unleashing a primal scream that could level mountains. I suggest all who listen to the song to play it as LOUD as possible to give her war cry the proper showing.

SELEBRITIES

This is another band with love for the Factory Records era and dance-pop of the 80’s. Thankfully this is not another pretty but wasteful retread of 80’s music. As a friend pointed out, singer Maria Usbeck refuses to put on an affectation or show excessive emotion, instead crafting a plain sing/speak method akin to Alison Statton of Young Marble Giants. I completely agree, but their music also has a mixture of dance and danger that reminds me of Lori & the Chameleons. Factory, Giants, Lori, and a fun cover of Technotronic’s Move Me: Selebrities is a heavenly concoction.

FRANKIE & THE HEARTSTRINGS

Anyone who knows me has heard me lament how the 00’s were sorely missing a new collection of great lyricists. Perhaps you managed to find some to stimulate you, but I rarely did. At best I could find a few witty lines. Which camp Frankie & the Heartstrings will ultimately fall into remains uncertain, all I know is that I love the opening lyrics to Ungrateful: “We can only try our best / every time I see you I love you less...I WROTE THIS SONG WITH YOU IN MIND!”

It’s hardly a surprise that they managed to get the divine Edwyn Collins to produce their debut album: Edwyn has made it his life mission to craft as many pop gems as possible. Frankie appears to have the same desire. Ungrateful, Tender, and Fragile have big hooks you can sing along to, shimmering guitars, strong vocals, romance and pain, and a beat to boogie to. These are hallmarks of pop music. I hope they manage to craft an album of great stories and biting lyrics while inspiring dancing. Lyrics aren’t essential for music to be great, but they can make it infinitely sweeter.

STEVE MASON

I am so happy Steve Mason is still making music. His fans know there have been times where he has considered leaving this world early. That past mentality lies on the horizon of his new album, Boys Outside, his strongest post-Beta Band creation. Along with producer Richard X (a man who injected sweet style into Sugababes, Annie, and the dark lord named Luke Haines) Mason dispersed with musical eccentricity in favour of delicate electronic and acoustic sounds. The result is letting his songs shine for what they are and allowing his wounded feelings to take center stage. His song I Let Her In perfectly captures these ideas. It starts with gentle strumming, but it’s soon devoured by ominous synths. The transition causes a feeling of dread. Mason manages to enhance these fears via his evocative but saddening words and his sorrowful singing.

Although I have painted the album to be a bummer, I assure you it is not. Even when the Beta Band was at their most chaotic they had a never-ending stash of catchy songs. Mason hasn’t lost the ability to make you tap your toes, bounce your head, and sing along. The darkest tunes on here (The Letter, Lost & Found, and I Let Her In) as well as the brighter tunes have wonderful melodies. Some are immediately striking, while others grow with time. I liked the album straight away, but now I think it’s fantastic.

The two songs that have proven to be the most special for me are All Come Down and Hounds On My Heel. The former sounds incredibly simple, but the ultimate effect is one of overwhelming ecstasy. The song evolves into an angelic harmony of vibrating rhythms, soft strumming, and heavy reverb. The concluding track, Hounds On My Heel, only revealed its strengths to me recently. Hounds features different movements, always shifting into a new phase just as you grew comfortable with the past one. Various sounds drift in and out, but Mason remains at the front. His lyrics begin to have a reverential feel; what starts off as a prayer ends with the sound of salvation. Mason finally tells us “Don’t cry, it’s alright.”

I don’t think loving the Beta Band guarantees your love of this album (just as it doesn’t mean you would like other Mason projects King Biscuit Time or Black Affair), but all fans should give it a try. I have never been more excited to see what Steve Mason does next.

GEMMA RAY

She has proven to write a few highly attractive songs. The two albums she released this year, Lights Out Zoltar! and It’s A Shame About Gemma Ray, had their weak moments, but they also had sheer delights (plus, anyone who names their album after a Sparks lyric is a woman after my heart). Zoltar’s greatest songs were beauties that combined Ray’s lovely voice with her cinematic ambition. 100 MPH (in 2nd Gear) is her best achievement. It sounds like a song from a spaghetti western, the sweeping violins mixing with Ray’s tormented performance only heightens the sense of tragedy.

On the flip-side, she is just as capable with scaling back on the arrangements. It’s A Shame...is an album of covers she made in just a few days. The sound is bare, frequently consisting of just her and a guitar. She is at her most arresting with her version of Put A Bolt On The Door by Gallon Drunk. It is so restrained, and yet adding just one more instrument would have been gratuitous. Alone with her guitar she captures a different side of sinister than the kind Gallon Drunk excels at.

BAG RAIDERS

The moment I heard their song Shooting Star I loved it. It’s very straightforward: a catchy riff, ascending melody, all building up into a rush of sounds. Simple though it may be the music is so warm and affecting that I keep running back to it. The few other songs i’ve heard are decent, and their debut album has yet to come to our shores, but Shooting Star is sweet enough to stand on its own.

AEROPLANE

Any die-hard fans of the electro world probably know them. I was late to discovering their existence. When they were a duo they made stellar remixes for Grace Jones, Friendly Fires, and Au Revoir Simone. Now Aeroplane consists only of Vito DeLuca and, as a result, their original sound has altered. DeLuca played every instrument on debut album We Can’t Fly and the final product is a wild collision of genres: Studio 54, dub, Top Gun, hoe-down, ballad, robot pop, psychedelic, and much more. Not all of it works (and the hoe-down song is terrible) but most of it is thrilling.

The title track has reggae, electro, and a gospel choir. I Don’t Feel is a mighty blast of dance-floor fury, and it’s made even deadlier as sung by Merry Clayton (the same vixen who annihilated man-kind in the Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter). My Enemy embodies DeLuca’s love of film scores: sharp violins, 80’s dramatic guitar solos (hence Top Gun), and high-tension. As you can see, almost every song is filled with multiple styles. It’s chaotic, overwhelming, and off its head. In short, it’s very fun.

STROKE: The Chris Knox Tribute album

Do you recognize any of the following artists?: Stephin Merritt, Yo La Tengo, Jeff Magnum, A.C. Newman, Jay Reatard, Bill Callahan, Portastatic, Lambchop, Mountain Goats, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy. The aforementioned group have a few things in common; particularly a love and respect for New Zealand music pioneer Chris Knox. When it was announced that Knox suffered a stroke all of those artists and more signed up to make Stroke, a tribute album to Knox whose proceeds would go his medical fund.

The album is good, occasionally great, but it’s most important attribute is that it shines a bright light on an amazing artist many have never heard. Knox deserves to be championed as a master of pop. The difference between him and fellow masters of the genre is Knox will craft his songs with lyrics that shift from sincere to vicious to disturbing, recording them roughly with cheap equipment, but always lacing them with hooks nearly too magnificent to believe. His songs can make you finally understand the term “Less is more.” Most bands need mighty guitars, an orchestra, an ear-shattering singer, and over-the-top arrangements to illicit emotion from the audience. Knox has no need for such predictable behaviour. No matter how few instruments he uses the end result is a song more moving than anything Coldplay or U2 could ever create. His desire to stick to basics inspired fellow kiwi bands to follow his lead: the Clean, the Chills, and the Bats unleashed frantic minimalist pop that also managed to be some of the best music I have ever heard.

If you need proof of his talent just go listen to 1954, Not Given Lightly, My Only Friend, and Baby It’s Over by his band Tall Dwarfs. If you are really daring you should play his psychotic songs Meat and My Dumb Luck.

HURTS

Hurts has been earning attention in the U.K. for most of the year but have yet to make it to America. That’s O.K. since their debut album is nearly worthless. Thankfully they have one saving grace: Better Than Love, a song that remains invigorating even after dozens of listens.

TRICKY

Murder Weapon, the lead single from Tricky’s new album Mixed Race, is one of my favourite songs of the year. I have no idea how well his music does commercially, so perhaps a large number of you know this song, but I have yet to meet anyone who’s heard it, hence, I am putting it on the list. The song, like the original by Echo Minott, uses the Duane Eddy guitar riff from Peter Gunn to enhance the feeling of brute strength. Every second of the track feels like a threat of violence. The song ultimately leaves me feeling, to quote American Psycho, “lethal, on the verge of frenzy.”

The music video by Fleur and Manu also manages to be one of my favourite videos of the year. The duo perfectly captures the atmosphere of the song but they enhance the drama by making the video into a short boxing thriller. The cinematography and editing, both expertly done, heighten the fear of impending doom.

TREMBLING BLUE STARS

This is another odd choice. They are far from new; they’ve been making music since the mid-90’s and front-man Bobby Wratten has been a working musician for decades. The reason they appear here is because their new, and allegedly final, album was just released and seems to have received practically no attention in the press. Sure, they are an old band, their music is bereft of flash, none of their songs scream “Hit Single”, and they don’t look like the sort of musicians seen on the cover of Rolling Stone. Perhaps that is too limiting on my part, especially since indie has become main-stream, but any music from Wratten is doomed to live in the shadows.

The great shame of this is that, to these ears, he has been making some of the most beautiful music in the world. When he emerged with the Field Mice he, like the Bats and David Gedge, arrived fully-formed (which means, barring a few small twists, every album essentially sounds the same). He writes painfully-sincere lyrics, drapes his tales in mysterious melancholy, tinkers with volume and sound effects, and makes every note and melody catchy enough to haunt you. Obviously this is not for everyone; in my eight years of listening to him I’ve only managed to turn one person into a Trembling fan. For those who are so inclined, Wratten is one of the few people who can make misery feel so good.

The new Trembling album, Fast Trains & Telegraph Wires, is another collection of high-quality material. My Face For The World To See could almost be a pop single. Cold Colours is not the first time they’ve used a New Order-esque riff, but it may be their best attempt. Producer Ian Catt, who also produced music by the Field Mice and Saint Etienne, remains the perfect foil for Wratten. Together they create a canvas as luscious as the songs themselves. Best of all is how the music remains out of a time. None of it feels dated through technology or styles; they remain just as grey and wet as their British homeland.

I have no idea if Trembling truly is splitting, if Wratten is retiring or will emerge in a new outfit. Considering how strong their new album is, and how so few people listen to them, I think they deserve to be on this list. I need his music in my life; it defines me as much as New Model Army, Magnetic Fields, and Talk Talk. A man as talented as him, with a body of work as prolific as it is strong, deserves to be heard.

oOoOO

oOoOO cast a strange spell, one I don’t entirely understand but I have no desire to. The reason why is because they create an always evolving atmosphere that is as challenging as it is soothing. Some U.K. critics have dubbed this band, and its contemporaries, as being Slow-Wave, or Chill-Wave, or some other meaningless moniker. The only title I want to give it is striking. I want to dance, but I want to lay back and let the sounds consume me. They can make me smile one second, have me sighing the next, all while keeping my head bouncing. Their music actually reminds me of Roxy Music at their most stark. Although there is nothing in their music that obviously recalls Roxy, oOoOO is the sound of faded glamour. Hearts and Burnout Eyes carry a sense of sadness that lingers underneath the dance beats. The vocals on No Summer4U are hazy, done in a trance, while the vocals on No Shore sounds like a spectre in slow-motion. Ultimately their music makes me feel like I am alone in a grand mansion, dancing the days away, with only an inflatable doll for company...and pleasure.

YOUR TURN NOW.....

Previously in END OF YEAR 2010 LISTS:

• 1/21: Songs To Consider ...
• 1/4: The Top Ten Sneakers of 2010
• 12/30: Top Ten Guilty Pleasures of 2010
• 12/21: The Best Musical Moments of 2010
• 12/20: Songs That Made Me! Happy in 2010
• 12/16: Worst Music Packaging Of 2010
• 12/15: Best Music Packaging of 2010
• 12/14: Top 10 Movie Superlatives of 2010!
• 12/7: Knock-Out Movies of 2010