POP/ROCK
MOGWAI
Mr Beast PIAS
Since 2003's Happy Songs for Happy People, the five-headed instrumental rock beast that is Mogwai have been holed up in their Castle of Doom studios in Glasgow, crafting another Frankenstein's monster of a record and fusing depth-charge piano lines, shimmering guitar signatures, submarine basslines and big, diver's boot slabs of sound. On the face of it, Mr Beast doesn't exactly confound expectations. All the requisite Mogwai components are there, including the country sad vocorder on Acid Food, the plangent piano on Auto Rock, and the crushing, constricting noise of Glasgow Mega-Snake. But there's a greater weight to the proceedings, as Stuart Braithwaite and his young team pile on ever-heavier layers of sound with all the confidence and menace of seasoned rugby internationals. When it all goes quiet, it's like floating on a dreamy sonic sea, but when it gets loud, it's like being woken up by a tidal wave.
www.mogwai.co.uk Kevin Courtney
BUZZCOCKS
Flatpack Philosophy Cooking Vinyl
In their pomp, The Buzzcocks were using three-minute pop songs to write about the minutiae of UK Northern life and messed-up sexual identity. They gave punk a new direction, and you don't have to look far to find their influence - there are echoes of their angular tunes and wry witty lyrics in Arctic Monkeys, Franz F, Futureheads and a dozen other modern new wavers. Sadly, Flatpack Philosophy is not the sound of elders reminding the upstarts how it's done. Instead, it sounds like Green Day's grouchy uncles moaning about Tescos and Ikea. The jagged Between Heaven and Hell and suckerpunch of Sound of a Gun aside, all the early spike and wit has been replaced by lumpen power chords and testiness. It's an album too far and one that adds nothing to the band's great legacy. www.buzzcocks.com
Paul McNamee
THE CONCRETES
In Colour EMI
The Ronettes lit up by the Northern Lights? The Concretes are an eight-piece from in and around Stockholm, and share with their close compatriots The Cardigans a natural sense of spooked melody and sombre lyrics. The comparisons don't end there, of course, but there is far more to The Concretes than lightness of touch and a sultry look. In Colour seeps with the influences of classy Americana and southern soul, Krautrock and country, albeit filtered through the landscape of northern Europe. Recorded in Omaha with Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley producer/director Mike Mogis, In Colour also references a strain of sophisticated pop that wouldn't be out of place on the dancefloor. It could have been a mess, but it's not; rather, it's a cohesive mass of goodness - smart, woozy, warm and memorable.
www.theconcretes.com
Tony Clayton-Lea
MUDHONEY
Under a Billion Suns Sub Pop
When grunge broke through, Mudhoney were the men credited with kicking down the door, and their Superfuzz Bigmuff EP was seen as the blueprint for the new sound of Seattle. Kurt Cobain bigged them up, but they never became as big as their lumber-shirted contemporaries. Old grungeheads Mark Arm and Steve Turner are still cranking up the fuzz pedals and crunching those big riffs, but now they've added a badass brass section and given their lyrics a barbed political edge. Where Is the Future? asks a simple question with a simply bone- crunching riff, while Hard-On for War posits the theory that "dirty old men" love sending boys to war because it leaves the field clear for them to score. It Is Us identifies the real enemy in the war on terror, while In Search Of . . . is a Black Sabbath-style sadcore ballad. Mark Arm's lupine voice can still rattle the furniture and Turner's guitars still shake the foundations, but the songwriting hasn't come all that far since 1991, when Bush Sr was in the driving seat. www.mudhoney.org Kevin Courtney
HOUSE
SWAYZAK
Route De La Slack: Remixes and Rarities !K7
It would seem that Swayzak's David Brown and James Taylor rarely sleep, such has been their prolific workrate over the past number of years. They're minimal house's sleekest remixers and producers, and a Swayzak rerub is so distinctive it's rarely mistaken for anything else. By stripping the sound back to its bare bones and then amplifying one or two specific elements, Swayzak create mesmerising echoes. You can hear plenty of these effects on this collection of remixes. It's present in the eerie dubs on their treatment of Will Saul's Tic Toc, the glowing jazzy depths of Bergheim 34's ticklish Random Access Memory, and the divine soft-shoed swirl of George Sarah's Sonata for Petra. A selection of Swayzak rarities on a second CD confirms the duo's standing as house producers with a sure, steady touch for streamlined thrills. www.swayzak.com
Jim Carroll
ELECTRONICA
NIGHTMARES ON WAX
In a Space Outta Sound Warp
No one else makes strung-out, slow-motion funk like George Evelyn. If his last album, Mind Elevation, was NOW's fat laces tribute to old-school hip-hop, Evelyn seems to be in thrall this time around to the moody soul and the sonic bump of sound systems. But while this could have been the cue for several pastiches-by-numbers reliving past glories, Evelyn simply lets the strings and the spacey sound effects roll to find a new mellow riot of lush, smoky grooves. The opening Passion is the by now standard tip of the hat to Quincy Jones, with its dubby, orchestral swagger drawing you closer before you get mugged by the hint of Hammond organ in the fabric. You Wish and The Sweetest are classic NOW grooves, right through to their blunted soul centres and gentle scrubs of Rhodes, but Pudpots shows that Evelyn can also draw from other wells as he turns a big band twist into a soundtrack for the souks. www.nightmaresonwax.com
Jim Carroll
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