Monthly Archives: March 2016

03.07.16
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Left With Pictures – Afterlife

Afterlife, the new album from Left With Pictures, mightn’t be officially released until April 29th but I’ve had a sneak preview. It’s a laidback yet confident work; big themes of death and rebirth are considered within the gentle chamber pop on offer. The beautifully arranged strings and keyboard flourishes are often embellished with choppy bits of electronica to make this a tad special. 

I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know much about Left With Pictures before listening to ‘Afterlife’. And yet, they’ve been around for ten years. Over that time, the band has won critical praise and steadily refined their craft of inventive pop music, where the acoustic and the electronic are intricately combined. Afterlife will be their first release in five years.

It opens with ‘Multiplex’, an orchestral brief instrumental that sets the stall out for what will follow. This isn’t the album’s only instrumental track. Later, perhaps at the start of side 2 if this was a vinyl release, we get ‘Who’s there’, another short piece. That sense of shadowy menace is never far from the surface. But who is there? 

Something is knocking and I don’t assume that the diagnosis is good. As early as the second track, ‘Bloody Mess’, we’re told, in a tune that could be lifted from Love’s ‘Forever Changes’, that the protagonist is ‘waiting for the moment to come when you know that you’re done’. Such starkness is hauntingly followed up in the next track, Terra Firma. ‘One day, I’ll find you at the waters edge’, they sing. 

There are moments of respite. Within the jaunty keyboard riff of ‘The Start’, Left With Pictures prove that they can write a pure pop tune if forced. “Might this be the start of everything?” is the optimistic opine. This track follows the beautiful and cinematic ‘Stage Fright’, that sad waltzing moment in any Hollywood film before it all works out in the end. 

But, when the resolution does arrive in final track, ‘The Night Watch’, it’s not complete glitz and glamour. Amidst shimmering, fizzy loops, we acknowledge that ‘all who love you will be there‘. This is the last rites; the album’s final goodbye. 

Throughout, this is an album that contrasts the positive and uplifting with the unbearable lightness of being. It’s themes are challenging but it doesn’t make it inaccessible; for, at their heart, Left With Pictures remain a band that produce clever and captivating, interesting pop.

 
03.01.16
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Axixic – Love In The Back Of A Cab

From time to time, I’m asked ‘what’s your favourite music?’ It’s a question that I always struggle to answer. I don’t have a genre and I’m not sure that I have a favourite band. Typically, when asked such a question, I begin to flounder and waffle. I might mumble something about quirky electronica, country or folk before beating myself up for failing to say very much at all.

If I’m asked about ‘favourite songs’, I fare a bit better. Ever since I was a young boy, the songs that really do it for me are ones that tell stories; they’ll be lyrically astute, often splashed with dashes of humour and poetry; they’ll often eschew the mythical for a more basic sort of kitchen-sink drama. That’s what I like. 

It’s probably why this song from Axixic appeals so much. The narrative to ‘Love In The Back Of A Cab’ is pretty linear and full of charm and romance. Bill Clarke (who is Axixic) explains that this is a true story. He shared a taxi with a beautiful woman which culminated in a kiss of magnetic proportions. They then proceeded to take different flights and, despite staying in touch on social media, being in different continents has meant that the cab passion has remained a one-off. 

Bill seems like quite a character with plenty of stories to relay. I’m drawn to the impulsiveness of his approach as much as I am by the warm and rich, velvety vocal he utilises. He told me the following by E-mail:-

“I chucked my former life in Canada and moved to a mountain village south of Guadalajara, Mexico to pursue my passion (writing). I record as Axixic (pronounced: acks-icks-ick) because googling my real name is pretty much the same as googling “John Smith”. Axixic is the original spelling of the name of the mountain village where I live (Ajijic).”

Do take a look at this. I think the tale will bring some smiles. 

03.01.16
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The Liminanas – Garden Of Love

Many years ago now, I caught a flight to Perpignan. It was a ‘make or break’ holiday for a relationship which, in truth, was already broken. There were four of us and we’d hired a large tent on a posh campsite to keep us cool for a couple of weeks. 

The South of France was sweltering under unprecedented levels of heat. My young son (for he was one of us) flagged even though he wore a hat and drank lots of water. In truth, I didn’t fare much better, although I was drinking wine and beer rather than water. It wasn’t the best holiday ever though the green of the campsite, endlessly watered grass, sticks in my memory still.

The Liminanas are from Perpignan. Marie and Lionel have just released a video for their song ‘Garden Of Love’, the first track to be released from their forthcoming album, Malamore. Significantly perhaps, this track features Peter Hook doing his bass thing. Hooky also offers up some mumbling backing vocals to add to the atmosphere. 

I love it. There’s a definite Serge Gainsbourg thing going on within. It’s got a seductive edge, a dreamy breeze and a shimmering, sunny centre. As lips, glossed with bright red lipstick, mouth the words, other images from the ‘Garden Of Love’ flicker in and out of view. 

Commenting on the forthcoming album, The Liminanas say, “The main idea is a story with a start and an end, which can be linked even if they exist in different universes. Everything here is about love stories – thwarted love, aborted passions, funny or dramatic.”

The campsite could have been my garden. It wasn’t but I’m pleased to tell that story of aborted love.