album // Vorwärts
In the run-up to Record Store Day on 16 April 2011,
of all the four Mute releases being made available,
it was Vorwärts that I was most excited about; consequently
when it became apparent that I wasn't going to be able to get to
an independent record store at all on the day, it was not getting
a copy of Vorwärts - in all its limited, 1000 copies
only, orange vinyl plus CD glory - that most disappointed me. Subsequently
the LP was made available on Mute Bank, and subsequently I am a
very happy man indeed.
In the main, the reason for this is two prior Mute
compilations, both of which I covet as two of my most cherished
CDs: International (Mute, 1991) and The Tyranny Of
The Beat (The Grey Area Of Mute, 1991). The former arrived
when I was still dipping my toe into the Mute catalogue, opening
my ears to Nick Cave, Renegade Soundwave
and Fortran 5 and changing my perceptions of the
likes of Inspiral Carpets. The Tyranny Of The
Beat, with its liner notes by Biba Kopf, did
the same for industrial music and the music that influenced Mute,
opening my ears to Cabaret Voltaire, Wire,
Can and Einstürzende Neubauten.
Both represent fairly pivotal points in my immersion into Mute and
alternative music generally.
Vorwärts is the German for 'forwards',
and it finds the newly-independent looking ahead to the future,
the album containing some recent signings (Big Deal,
S.C.U.M., Josh T. Pearson), some
artists from the past couple of years (Polly Scattergood,
Yann Tiersen, Yeasayer) and finally
a decent showing from Mute's old guard (Can, Nick Cave's Grinderman,
Mick Harvey, Simon Fisher Turner,
Liars).
Whilst exclusives are in short supply (most of the
tracks are either by now available on singles or albums or will
be in the future, or can be tracked down as official free promo
mp3s from legitimate websites), Vorwärts does turn
in a version of Grinderman's 'Heathen Child' recorded live in session
at RAK Studios, where the band faithfully reproduce the frenzy of
the studio version with a much more prominent - and distinctly funky
- bass line; Cave spits out the line 'give me the money'
over and over at the end, a rapturous outburst tinged with something
altogether decadent. There's also Liars' 'Greyscale' which finds
the band adopting a mysterious, vaguely ethereal-sounding oddness
not dissimilar to the imagery evoked on 2004's They Were Wrong
So We Drowned. Backwards sounds, an occasional bass note and
a subtle, echoing beat complement vocalist Angus Andrew's
drifting, near-falsetto vocal. Spooky stuff, though the guitar melody,
when it kicks in, is pretty beautiful. I should really fill in my
Liars collection.
One of the biggest draws of Vorwärts
is the edit of Can's 'Millionspiel'. The soundtrack to a film of
the same name, my understanding is that this is a never-before-issued
track which will appear on the forthcoming Can boxset. It undoubtedly
has a filmic quality, if that quality is motorik music for car chases
through murky German backstreets. Then again, until I read the notes
inside Vorwärts, I didn't know it was from a film
and hence have naturally overlaid movie reference points to what
is otherwise just a brilliant piece of urgent, slightly psychedelic
music. The first section has a buzzing, echoing ambience while the
second section has an omnipresent 4/4 beat, bursts of distorted
guitar noise, a stalking bass line and a guitar riff that Morricone
would love. I know I've 'fessed up before that I only have a limited
amount of Can in my collection, but this has become an instant favourite
(even if I don't normally dig flute melodies). There's also a jazz-informed
section at the end and some EFS-style tablas. It's almost like most
Can reference points all snuggly wrapped in one little song, a micro
'best of' if you will.
Elsewhere on Vorwärts is the haunting,
creeping evolutions of Yann Tiersen's 'The Gutter', filled with
delicate singing and a sweet organic quality which is only marginally
offset by the grainy spoken word samples muttering away in the background.
'Locked Up' by Big Deal, containing gorgeous vocal interplay from
Kacey Underwood and Alice Costelloe
as well as some fuzzy, over-driven guitars, is one of the most fragile
and poignant ballads I've heard, telling a tale of pent-up emotion
and needlessly putting on a brave face to protect a loved one. It's
a plaintive love song to the strong, silent type who can't display
their emotions comfortably. I think. NME had this available
as a free download as part of a Radar Tour EP, and was
included on the B-side of the band's single from April 2011 on Moshi
Moshi ('Talk' - click here for my
review).
Josh T. Pearson's sweet 'Singer To The Crowd', a
live favourite, is included and has subsequently appeared on the
flip of the second single from Last Of The Country Gentlemen,
'Woman, When I've Raised Hell'. S.C.U.M.'s 'Summon The Sound' with
its blackened, Goth-like heart reminds me a lot of A Place
To Bury Strangers, and the stop-start layers evoke Add
N To (X), which makes sense given that keyboardist Samuel
Kilcoyne is the son of that band's Barry 7,
which makes me feel really old. Okay so it's a bundle of bleak negativity
and sinister moods, but I really like it. I believe it's knocking
about as a free mp3 from the NME or such like.
The Munk remix of Yeasayer's 'Madder Red' is an
excellent new take on an already excellent track, an upbeat slant
with retro tinges that adds a euphoric dimension to a track which,
in its original state, was highly moving; only recast by Munk it
moves the feet rather than the heart. This was originally available
as a free mp3 from the blogosphere. Mick Harvey's 'The Ballad Of
Jay Givens' appears on Sketches From Book Of The Dead,
which was released a couple of weeks after Vorwärts.
This is Mick, with accompaniment from guitar, strings and organ,
telling a dark tale of Givens, apparently his father's best friend,
a chap with a pretty dark and shady past. As a story set to music
it's absorbing and mysterious.
'Silver Lining' finds Polly Scattergood's customary
Kate Bush-esque breathy / cracked voice set to a bed of burbling
electronics, a combination that's infinitely more interesting than
any of the other girls-with-keyboards set-ups that are out there.
'How do you measure the silver lining?' is her inquisitive
phrase on the chorus, which is the type of obliquely innocent question
my young daughters are fond of asking.
On the CD only, Simon Fisher Turner and Espen
J. Jörgensen's 'Noise Activity' couldn't be more aptly
named. Just over one minute's worth of pure, unadulterated and gleeful
noise, Jörgensen described the track to me as their 'ADHD track'
which is a perfectly astute description for a track which sounds
like an out of control robot running amok in a studio. Snatches
of jazz and the types of bludgeoning beats favoured back in the
day by the likes of Mike 'µ-ziq' Paradinas and his old mucker
Richard 'Aphex Twin' James, along with jump-cut distortion and ear-piercing
high-pitched sounds. I love it. 'Noise Activity' is taken from the
duo's forthcoming SOUNDESCAPES album. You can read my interview
with Jörgensen here.
US edition
The US edition reflects Mute's slightly different
roster to the UK side. So in the place of the Munk remix of Yeasayer
(signed to Secretly Canadian for the US) and the live session from
Grinderman, these tracks are replaced by 'Be The One' by Moby
(still signed to Mute in the States) and the White Sea remix of
'In Every Direction' by Junip (on City Slang in
the UK). The Yann Tiersen track is excluded also.
Moby's 'Be The One' was made available free as part
of an EP of the same name, whose release Moby himself described
as highlighting his lack of financial / commercial ambition and
acumen. 'Be The One' is a storming maelstrom of 4/4 beats, whining
guitars and a somewhat bitter vocal delivered by Moby through a
vocoder effect. The remix of Junip re-casts the first track from
Fields as a gospel-y track filled with much emotion and
drama, though at times the female backing singer gets worryingly
close to Florence And The Machine, but I like it.
Short Circuit Version
A special edition version of Vorwärts
was released at the Mute
Short Circuit event at London's Roundhouse on 13 / 14 May 2011.
The gatefold slipcase version includes a different sleeve design
and an expanded track listing, and was released for the event in
an edition of 500. (You can read my review of Short Circuit here.)
In addition to the full Record Store Day edition
tracklist, the Short Circuit version adds three extra tracks. Two
of these – Apparat's 'Ash / Black Veil' and
Beth Jeans Houghton's 'Dodecahedron' – were
offered up by Mute as free mp3s in the last few months. Apparat's
track is like an electronica-meets-classical music blend, a far
cry from the far harder releases that Apparat and T. Raumschmiere
put out on their Skitkatapult label. Houghton's track, on the other
hand, has an operatic feel, highlighting her exceptional vocal talent.
I'm not sure how best to describe the track to be honest; perhaps
I'll have more conviction by the time her album comes out.
The biggest draw is probably Non's
version of The Normal's 'Warm Leatherette'. According
to the sleeve notes the track was realised in 2010, but it started
life many moons ago: in recent months some snatches of demos of
early Mute acts like Yazoo, Fad Gadget
and Nitzer Ebb have emerged which have each of
these bands covering Daniel Miller's opening Mute
salvo, and one can only hope that the inclusion of Non's version
here is a signal that those demos may also see the light of day
soon. Boyd Rice's version is more or less faithful
to the original, in terms of structure and its sonic palette, although
some of the sounds have a definitely higher level of ear-piercing
abrasiveness compared to Miller's original; Rice's vocal also has
a more louche, more dangerously sexual quality, not dissimilar to
how you'd expect Vaughan, JG Ballard's central character in Crash,
to speak.
lp+cd:
1. Grinderman 'Heathen Child (RAK Session)'
2. Yann Tiersen 'The Gutter'
3. Big Deal 'Locked Up'
4. Josh T. Pearson 'Singer To The Crowd'
5. Liars 'Greyscale'
6. Can 'Millionspiel (Edit)'
7. S.C.U.M. 'Summon The Sound'
8. Yeasayer 'Madder Red (Munk Remix)'
9. Mick Harvey 'The Ballad Of Jay Givens'
10. Polly Scattergood 'Silver Lining'
11. Simon Fisher Turner / Espen J. Jörgensen 'Noise Activity'
(CD only)
lp+cd (US version):
1. Junip 'In Every Direction (White Sea Remix)'
2. Big Deal 'Locked Up'
3. Josh T. Pearson 'Singer To The Crowd'
4. Liars 'Greyscale'
5. Can 'Millionspiel (Edit)'
6. S.C.U.M. 'Summon The Sound'
7. Moby 'Be The One'
8. Mick Harvey 'The Ballad Of Jay Givens'
9. Polly Scattergood 'Silver Lining'
10. Simon Fisher Turner / Espen J. Jörgensen 'Noise Activity'
sccd (Short Circuit version):
1. Grinderman 'Heathen Child (RAK Session)'
2. S.C.U.M. 'Summon The Sound'
3. Can 'Millionspiel (Edit)'
4. Big Deal 'Locked Up'
5. Josh T. Pearson 'Singer To The Crowd'
6. Yann Tiersen 'The Gutter'
7. Non 'Warm Leatherette'
8. Yeasayer 'Madder Red (Munk Remix)'
9. Apparat 'Ash / Black Veil'
10. Beth Jeans Houghton 'Dodecahedron'
11. Mick Harvey 'The Ballad Of Jay Givens'
12. Simon Fisher Turner / Espen J. Jörgensen 'Noise Activity'
13. Polly Scattergood 'Silver Lining'
14. Liars 'Greyscale'
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