Something Old, Something New, Something To Look Forward To: October

October’s trio of recommendations:

Something Old: Built To Spill - Perfect From Now On (1997)

How Built To Spill aren’t more of a big deal is a mystery to me. Fairly popular in the U.S. but something of an anomaly on these shores, Doug Martsch and his pals have been crafting intricate and muscular, yet melodic and uplifting (Martsch uses the word “sun” more than any lyricist since Brian Wilson) guitar music for 15 years now. The high watermark is ‘97’s Perfect From Now On, a sprawling 8-song 54-minute epic, whose impeccable craft and attention to detail is second to none. Martsch is a true guitar hero and knows how his effects pedals to their fullest, but it’s his ability to arrange so many guitar parts so expertly and create mighty walls of guitar sound that make him so unique. The deployment of mellontrons and cellos are significant, lifting the climax of Made Up Dreams to impossible levels of loveliness, and giving album centrepiece Velvet Waltz real gravitas even before it moves into it’s phenomenal coda of layered guitar noise and crashing drums. Add to that Martsch’s endearing vocals and starry eyed lyrics contemplating the afterlife (Randy Describes Eternity) and, of course, the sun (Kicked It In The Sun), and you have one of the finest guitar albums of the 90’s. See it played in its entirety at the London Koko on November 4^th: I bought my ticket almost 6 months ago!

If you like this, try: Modest Mouse – The Moon & Antarctica (2000), The Halo Benders – The Rebel’s Not In (1998)

Something New: TV On The Radio – Dear Science

As wonderful as TV On The Radio’s last album, 2006’s Return To Cookie Mountain was, it was a pretty challenging listen that was never going to float everyone’s boat. Dear Science then, is the best response the avante-garde New Yorkers could have possibly made, an album that manages to be both their most ambitious and accessible to date. As pleasingly unclassifiable as ever, the hybrid of angular guitars, buzzsaw synths, looped effects, tribal drumming mixed with clattering drum machines, and the unique soulful vocal combination of Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone all remain in place but Dear Science adds even more layers to the TVOTR sound, with horns and plucked strings in clear evidence: just check out rousing first single Golden Age. That none of the songs collapse under their own weight is thanks to the production work of the band’s own David Sitek, who makes this a less harsh sounding album than previous works, and yet crisper sounding at the same time. There’s a looser, funkier approach to many of the songs here, most notably on Red Dress and the Prince-like Crying. Then there’s the grace of the ballad Family Tree, which could so easily have been a botch-job, but is handled with due care and attention. Lyrically too, this is less opaque than on previous outings. There’s the feeling of a state-of-the-nation address when Adebimpe raps the opening lines “he's a what?/he’s a what?/he’s a newspaper man/And he gets his best ideas from a newspaper stand”. It’s often an angry album, perversely put alongside the most uplifting music they’ve made. Not only is Dear Science one of the very finest releases of the year, but it might, just might, replicate Arcade Fire’s Funeral to become an instant classic.

If you like this, try: Talking Heads - Remain In Light (1980)

Something To Look Forward To: Deerhunter - Microcastle

If you’ve kept a close eye on internet music ‘zines such as Pitchfork, you will probably be all too familiar with the skeletal figure of Brandon Cox. Revered by some, reviled by others, the man behind Deerhunter and Atlas Sound knows how to make a name for himself, whether it’s slagging somebody off, revoking said slagging, or, perhaps more endearingly, posting music on a near-daily basis on his blog. After the intermittently great first Atlas Sound album Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel, my interest has shifted back to Deerhunter and their forthcoming follow-up to last year’s excellent LP Cryptograms and subsequent EP Flourescent Grey. Those two releases saw the band seemingly develop as they went along: playing them back-to-back saw the band seamlessy move from kraut-rock to ambient psychadelia to dreamy guitar pop. The first, rather tasty single, the loosely Pavement-esque Agoraphobia seems to maintain that momentum, and makes Microcastle’s release at the end of this month all the more highly anticipated.

If you like their earlier work, try: Liars – Liars (2007), {{{SUNSET}}} – Bright Blue Dream (2008)