STACK Magazine December Issue 122

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Album of the month FOo Fighters:
Sonic highways
NEWS MUSIC
MUSIC AT A GLANCE
THIS MONTH
T he sonorous baritone of
Sydney songwriter Jack
Ladder is highly distinctive. It’s
carried him over three albums
with his band The Dreamlanders
(who count one Kirin J.
Callinan in the ranks
among others), and the
epic, widescreen vistas his
music explores have
been well-served
by both. However,
his latest album
Playmates
represents a departure into some
serious new territory, one awash
with electro thrills, and duets with
US vocalist Sharon Van Etten – all
created under the watchful
eye of The Presets’ Kim
Moyes, who produced the
album. Moyes had been
in a band called Prop that
Jack described as “Sydney’s
version of Tortoise”, and knew
Moyes from supporting the
early Presets in a band called
Expatriate. “I’ve known him for
years. Kim’s thing is like ‘Japanese
synth’; he’s more into techno than
‘pop music as it were.’ Kim’s edge
is much more into Cluster, Can and
all that German music from the
’70s, the motorik beat.” While Jack
also professes a love for NY tech
punks Suicide, it’s his voice that
defines his work. “Tim Hardin and
Fred Neil – I always thought were
great singers.”
Playmates by Jack Ladder is out
now on Inertia.
jack ladder and his playmates
A Quick Look at
New Music,
All Different Kinds,
All Different Places.
DECEMBER 2014 JB Hi-Fi
R ecent years have seen Dave Grohl and
his band Foo Fighters gradually
redefining themselves in the public eye,
after they sank dangerously into semi M.O.R rock
radio territory. First came well-received doco Back
and Forth, then Grohl’s excellent Sound City
movie, and studio album Wasting Light, which
reconnected them with their roots (working with
Butch Vig, Bob Mould and ex-Nirvana bassist
Krist Novoselic).This set up Foos perfectly for
Sonic Highways – eight songs recorded in eight
different American cities, their atmospheres (and
certain local collaborations) supposedly informing
each track.The accompanyingTV series – even if
you think Grohl went soft in the head after The
Colour and the Shape – kicks goals in overall
terms. No matter your view of Foo Fighters, it’s a
very passionate investigation of modern
American music’s evolution. But, how does the
album stand up, without the supporting vision?
Sonic Highways is a serviceable modern rock
record, with plenty of energy, the odd lyrical
misstep, and some fantastic guest appearances;
forget anything as dourly punk as Nirvana’s In
Utero (referenced in
episode one of the
series), or even the
self-titled debut, but
there is some snarl in
this engine. And there
needed to be. It’s also
resolutely a Foo Fighters
record; influence is
suggested, not overt.
Opener Something from
Nothing (recorded in Chicago) begins with gentle
AM radio-invoking ‘70s lilt, before vague funk
touches give way to a full-blown, unfettered
scream; it finishes more impressively than it
starts. The Feast and the Famine, recorded with
Grohl’s pre-Nirvana band Scream in Virginia
(outsideWashington, DC), again starts as
rumbling radio rock, but it’s a no BS vocal from
Grohl; tight and nasty, it’s murkier than you’d
expect. What Did I Do?/God As MyWitness is a
southern flag waver, more Lynyrd Skynyrd than
the fabled Roky Erickson, although Gary Clarke
Jnr’s ‘take it home’ solo is a highlight. Outside
takes off the bleached streets and sun of LA,
where “down below the canyon, (you) hear the
siren screaming.” Nate Mendel’s bass runs are a
thing of beauty on this echoing, album highpoint
that’s pushed over the edge by a solo from Joe
Walsh (the niceEagle). Grohl manages to invoke
The Beatles andThe ScreamingTrees on the
Seattle-recorded Subterranean, while I Am a
River (tracked in NYC) is the big-note closer;
there’s a hint ofThe Clash’s Straight to Hell
before the strings get seriously ‘Charlton Heston’.
All up, Sonic Highways
pulls no punches, and
wastes no time. It’s no
perfect rock record, but in
poring over the music that
shaped them, Foos rustle a
few of their own feathers.
Sonic Highways by Foo
Fighters is out now via Sony
Music.
Temples
Sun Restructured
Temples arrived earlier this year with
Suns, a concise kaleidoscopic pop
record. It was a confident debut from the
Kettering band, and a highly satisfying rock ride. Production
duo Beyond the Wizards Sleeves (formed by Erol Alkan
and Richard Norris) are veterans of the psychedelic scene,
and bring their extensive and unique skills to reworking
the whole album. The original songs are dubbed, flipped,
extended, and sent into space upon a cloud of special
effects and fuzzed synth chords. Sun was fun and Sun
Restructured is an enjoyable trip as well. Simon Winkler
(Liberator/Universal)
Dean Blunt Black Metal
Producing truly unpredictable pop is no
easy feat, but for several years Dean
Blunt has succeeded on all fronts.
First working with creative partner
Inga Copeland as duo Hype Williams, and now solo, Blunt
has crafted a series of releases that are compelling, if
unfamiliar. Looped samples, atmospheric instrumental
fragments and hushed vocals are blended with spoken word
samples and sound effects to form fractured narratives.
A shadowy strain of dub and hip hop runs throughout the
record, but a counter-balancing lightness appears on Lush,
an expansive mix of stumming guitars and swirling strings.
50 Cent is sweet and sad; a plaintive duet that’s among
Blunt’s most conventionally structured works to date. Molly
& Aquafina is equally absorbing. Yet again, Blunt has pieced
together a unique work that challenges and intrigues.
Simon Winkler (Remote Control/Inertia)
Black Fire, New Spirits
Radical and Revolutionary
Jazz in the USA 1957-82
A certain strand of American jazz – post
bop and before the commercialisation of
certain strands turned into champagne
and dinner music – remains irrevocably tied to cultural
progression and burgeoning sociopolitical awareness.
Jazz was an expression of an increasing power of black
intellectualism in the ’60s, and it was one element among
many – literature, theatre and other art forms. Capturing the
essence of this era is valuable. Soul Jazz, through collating
14 tracks with a 28-page booklet – provide a genuinely
valuable insight into a highly combustible time. From Don
(father of Neneh) Cherry and his Utopian Visions to the latter
era proto rap of The Last Poets (It’s a Trip), this is a vital
education. If you buy the idea that music is a map of social
history, and that jazz is one of humanity’s most vibrant forms
of self-expression, this is for you.
Jonathan Alley (Soul Jazz /Inertia)