album // Peakahokahoo
The debut album from former Vic Twenty vocalist Piney Gir caught me somewhat unawares. After the sedate bossa nova pop of first single 'Janet Schmanet' and its serene B-sides, the self-styled 'eclectronica' of Peakahokahoo traverses all manner of alternative pop styles, all benefiting from Piney's gorgeous vocal, which sits somewhere between A C Marias and The Cranberries' Dolores O'Riordan, via Kansas City.
Produced by A Scholar And A Physician, this is a glossy, well-produced debut that sidesteps being caught up in a swirl of lo-fi glitsch-based trendiness. Reference points abound, from classy Phil Spector-style deep walls of sound ('Sweet'), through swing-based melodic jazz-pop. One of the clearest influences appears to be the vintage spiky melodies and thudding drums and percussion of Speak & Spell-era Depeche Mode (check out the melodic hooks on the opener ‘Boston’ or ‘Creatures’, or the dangerously addictive rises and falls of my personal favourite ‘Girl’). The storming electro-punk crunch of the cover of The Who's 'My Generation' - featuring Erasure's long-term backing vocalists Valerie Chalmers and Ann-Marie Gilkes - sidesteps Patti Smith's dreadful version by wiring crumbling synths up to Pete Townshend's proto-punk original, and finds Piney's vocal becoming like an unruly child sucking on a helium balloon at an otherwise dignified birthday party, and initiating a food-fight with the Marmite swirls.
The mostly instrumental ‘La La La’ sounds like the massed ranks of electronica's old guard reclaiming the looped bells of Pierre Henry's 'Psyché Rock' (from Messe Pour Le Temps Présent) from Fatboy Slim's sacrilegious remix, infusing the track with the same spirit that made Dubstar's debut so compelling. The glam-country rocker ‘Greetings, Salutations, Goodbye’ comes complete with a truly infectious chorus and some fuzzed up slide guitar or pedal steel. A string-soaked 'K-I-S-S-I-N-G' pushes the contradiction out even further, its tale of love's twists and turns and inevitabilities wrapping their way around the staccato violin.
Elsewhere, the masterful collaboration with Simple Kid (‘Nightsong’) pitches a faithful (albeit electronic) swing-pop backdrop with some superior duetting that successfully reclaims the genre from Robbie and Nicole or Pop Idol's themed week disasters. ‘Ruth Is Coming To America’ sees an instrumental Piney melding together what could well be Vince Clarke's most eccentric sounds and melodies into one cute little gem of a tune, via old Commodore 64 game themes. How this can segue into the theatrically-bleak slow-mo glam pop of ‘Jezebel’ is well beyond me - imagine Chicago's Roxy locked in the slammer with Suzy Quattro and Alice Cooper and the Bowie-produced backdrop of Iggy's Nightclubbing, and you'd still be miles off. The track dissolves into a wild mix of white noise and vocal snatches.
While at times kitsch - the brief cover of my least favourite song of all time 'Que Cera Cera' or the 78RPM-style scratchiness of the hidden theremin and piano version of 'Over The Rainbow' - this album is made unique by Piney's beautiful vocals and a true mastery of the kind of quality credible pop that bristles just beneath the crass commercialism of the chart. That Piney can blend so many genres together into one coherent and listenable disc marks this out as my favourite album of 2004 thus far. All I need now is the new Erasure album, and a collaboration between the two and my life will almost certainly be complete.
single // Janet Schmanet
What did I expect from this single? Having encountered Piney live as part of Vic Twenty in 2003, and via her work with Orff Orchestra on the pretty special 'Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Darkness' 7", my expections for this 3" CD on Truck Records were raised by the addition of some truly original packaging - 'Janet Schmanet' comes attached to a green piece cardboard snugly inserted into a press-sealed clear plastic bag, complete with badges...and a black feather, in my case. A 3-track single running for just under 10 minutes, this is the first release for Piney Gir (AKA Angela Penhaligon) after exiting Vic Twenty.
The lead track here, 'Janet Schmanet' is a pretty little slice of quirky electronic pop that eschews current tendencies toward 'glitsch' ryhthms in favour of what sounds like an old-fashioned keyboard rhthym preset, with obligatory bass accompaniment and fills. Over this, some atmospheric synth washes, and a gorgeously simple melody are added. It is, however, Piney's vocal that truly stands out. Her sweet American accent comes through on this tale of unusual personalities - Janet Schmanet herself, a guy called Bill on Capitol Hill, a man called Zero residing inside our TV sets (our narrator's hero) - told in such a cute way, before pulling off a complete Graham Lewis on the line 'Get your adverbs here'. Carefully controlled vocal reverbs give this a ethereal tone, a dreamlike edge that I could listen to all day (and one day probably will).
In contrast, the White Chapel mix of 'K-I-S-S-I-N-G', consists of little more than a steady, stalking almost double, bass, what appears to be a melodica melody and some shimmering synth noises, with a subtly distorted, mostly spoken vocal. For some reason, this atmospheric track kind of reminds me of 'Trilby's Couch', the opening track on the AC Marias album One Of Our Girls.
Final track, Mindlobster's mix of 'Sweet', is something else altogether - a danceable slice of electro with occasional vocals. It's got a retro feel, like something Octagon Man would have put together if he was given the chance to remix Yazoo. It's upbeat vibe rounds off a compelling and necessary electropop gem of a single, and as a taster for the album, this certainly whets the appetite.