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My greatest regret of the year, with regard to No Ripcord at least, is publishing a relatively lukewarm 7/10 review of Fleet Foxes’ début album. If any record deserved the perfect ten this year, and we’ve awarded two such ratings, Fleet Foxes was it.
The widely acclaimed Seattle band has channelled its classic influences, some of which (sacred harp singing, CSNY) aren’t commonly considered fashionable, into a unique and timeless sound. Though frequently compared to many of the 60s artists that creative leader Robin Pecknold grew up worshipping, to my ears Fleet Foxes’ music rarely sounds like anything but Fleet Foxes. That the band achieves this singularity without being particularly experimental in its approach to songwriting is a testament to the strength of its soaring harmonies and, most vitally, Pecknold’s amazing voice. It’s no exaggeration to say that in fifty years time, this young man will be regarded as one of the greats.
It’s October 29th, a cold Wednesday night in Sheffield, and the university’s Foundry venue is the latest stop on Fleet Foxes’ UK tour. I can scarcely recall being this excited about a show in a long time; looked around, it seems I’m not the only one who’s looking forward to this sold out show. The venue is packed to the rafters and there’s a genuine buzz, a palpable sense of expectation.
As they file quietly onto the stage, however, the five members of Fleet Foxes look anything but thrilled to be here. Initially, there’s not a smile in sight, but after a slightly awkward minute or two of additional tuning, the band confidently begins the a capella Sun Giant and suddenly the room is literally full of them. With the exception of the solitary clean-shaven member, guitarist Skye Skjelset, who doesn’t sing a note all night, the band is literally belting this one out, and it sounds spectacular. Pitch perfect. And this is Fleet Foxes warming up? An equally impressive rendition of Sun It Rises follows, sans the ‘Red Squirrel’ intro, and the evening’s entertainment is officially under way.
English House gets a great reception and it becomes apparent that tonight’s packed crowd are not casual onlookers but rabid fans who’ve clearly devoured both Fleet Foxes and the companion EP, Sun Giant. Later on, some members of the audience (not me, of course, I’m far too reserved…) are literally punching their fists into the air and screaming out the words to Mykonos, of all tracks. It’s a great sight, and Pecknold et al, perhaps realising that they’re amongst friends, soon begin to warm up and begin to engage the crowd. The bearded frontman looks aghast as an audience member explains that university students don’t get discount for shows at their own venue. He also fails to comprehend the South Yorkshire housing market, and along with the rest of the band, indulges in the continuation of a Led Zeppelin joke which was started earlier in the evening by drummer, backing vocalist and, for the duration of this tour, support act, J. Tillman (whose short opening set was excellent, by the way). They might look like a bunch of perma-stoned hippies, but, in the world of Fleet Foxes, appearances can be deceptive.
I could easily devote another 500 words to the discussion of set highlights, but it would probably end up reading like an annotated set list. The band’s catalogue is pretty evenly balanced in terms of quality, after all, and tonight everything sounds pretty much stellar, from the gigantic recent single White Winter Hymnal right through to the solo Pecknold renditions of Tiger Mountain Peasant Song and the intimate Oliver James. Your Protector is a big personal favourite of mine, and as those angelic voices launch into its climactic chorus, the sensation is literally spine tingling. For me, this single moment is the most satisfying live music experience of 2008, and I’ve seen some pretty fantastic shows this year (Bon Iver, My Bloody Valentine twice). Yes, you read that right, it’s even better than the famed noise freakout of You Made Me Realise.
So remember, you read it here last: Fleet Foxes – 2008’s greatest band.
Originally published on No Ripcord on 26 July, this is the first edition of my new column for the site, “A Question Of Sound”.
. . .
Whether you like it or not, a lot of people get their music for free these days. Rare tracks, unreleased albums, even entire back catalogues – they’re all readily available at the click of a mouse. It just depends on your ethical standpoint, your level of computer expertise and, perhaps most significantly, the size of your hard drive. But if the perceived worth of recorded music has declined in the last decade, then the stock of live music has surely risen. Even with live video streams and concert DVDs, there’s no experience that comes close to just being there. This is perhaps why the reunion show has become such a big concept in the last five years or so.
As someone who worries far too much about things like artistic legacies, I’ve made a habit of avoiding almost all of the grizzled legends currently blazing the comeback trail; notable exceptions include Dinosaur Jr (definitely worth it) and Janes Addiction (a favour to a friend, and probably not). When the long-awaited live return of My Bloody Valentine was announced in November 2007, however, I found myself overcome with a sense of giddy excitement and anticipation that I haven’t experienced in response to a musical event, be it an album release or a live show, for a very long time. Now, I could happily scribble a 1,000 word hypothesis as to why an MBV comeback felt so right, but I’m assuming you’d sooner hear about the comeback itself. So I’ll try to focus on that without running off on too many tangents…
Having ordered three tickets for the Saturday show at London’s Roundhouse, I proceeded to tell everyone I knew (well, anyone who would be at least marginally interested) the good news. And then I waited. In April one of my friends phoned up to tell me that he wouldn’t be able to attend the London show (a friend’s wedding was his dismal excuse – priorities, eh?). This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Determined not to miss out, he bought two tickets for the Manchester Apollo show on 29/6/2008 and invited me along. My excitement levels literally doubled, I began counting the days.
. . .
Saturday June 21 – The Roundhouse, London
As we enter the rather attractive amphitheatre of Camden’s Roundhouse, we are greeted by one of the security guards who is enthusiastically handing out earplugs. He has a word of warning for those who decline his offer: “Are you sure? You’ll regret it!” I’m too young to have seen My Bloody Valentine prior to the legendary extended hiatus, but I’ve heard plenty of stories (and rumours) about the blistering noise sections, in particular the cacophonous middle eight-thousand of You Made Me Realise. I love music, I value my hearing – I’ll take a pair of your earplugs please, sir.
After a brief but enjoyable set from Sonic Boom (highlight: a heavenly version of Transparent Radiation) the four original members My Bloody Valentine – who incidentally look pretty much unchanged from the Loveless era publicity shots – take to the stage and launch into a meaty version of Only Shallow. I promptly insert my newly acquired ear plugs and something approaching the song’s vocal melody becomes apparent. And it sounds fantastic.
One of my favourite things about Loveless is the way it seems to possess different sonic qualities at different volumes; in the live setting, with a pair of earplugs, it is possible to have a similar experience, although in the louder sections there is the added bonus of a more physical element. At various intervals tonight I can genuinely feel my thorax vibrating. I can almost visualise the ossicles in my ears whirring away like miniature pneumatic drills, conducting the thunderous noise of the band, those little hammers and anvils beating in time with Colm O’Ciosoig’s powerful, metronomic drumming.
The band manages to get through a surprising number of classic tracks tonight – indeed, they play pretty much everything you’d want them to play: When You Sleep, Sueisfine, (When You Wake) You’re Still In A Dream, Come In Alone, To Hear Knows When, Feed Me With Your Kiss, Nothing Much To Lose, etc.
Nevertheless, the obvious highlights for me – as conventional as this may be – are still Soon, the peerless shimmering dance-shoegaze crossover, and the live signature track, You Made Me Realise. Every great band should have a classic track that frustratingly isn’t on any of its albums; this is My Bloody Valentine’s. It’s Kevin Shields’ best kept secret and tonight, true to form, it is transformed into thirty-minute ear-splitting monster. To say the noise levels during the extended noise section are uncomfortable would be a gross understatement: I try taking my earplugs out for a minute and I can barely believe it. Those ossicles I was talking about are presumably in the process of constructing a picket line as I insert those little foam protectors back into my ear canals. It’s abrasive, but with something to take the edge of the volume levels (which, if you believe everything you read in Internet forums, peaks at around 130dB) it’s an interesting physical experience. Not something you’d want to do every day and, looking around me at some of the contorted, uncomfortable facial expressions, clearly not something you’d want to expose naked eardrums to for any significant length of time.
You Made Me Realise rounds off a memorable set and as I leave the Roundhouse with my ears ringing I feel slightly smug in knowledge that I’ll be returning for a second helping of My Bloody Valentine in eight days time. Did I say slightly smug? Sorry, that should read enormously smug.
London Set List:
Only Shallow; When You Sleep; You Never Should; When You Wake; Cigarette In Your Bed; I Only Said; Come In Alone; Thorn; Nothing Much To Lose; To Here Knows When; Slow; Blown A Wish; Soon; Feed Me With Your Kiss; Sueisfine; You Made Me Realise
. . .
Sunday June 28 – The Apollo, Manchester
Here we are again. A different venue and a different friend to share the experience with, but the same brilliant band. Buoyed by my experience at the Roundhouse, and perhaps influenced by a few days in our nation’s capital, I soon find myself becoming one of those annoyingly arrogant audience members that thinks he knows better than everyone else. “Of course, they’ll start with Only Shallow” I condescendingly tell my friend, seconds before being blown away by a rousing version of I Only Said. In an instant I feel rather foolish.
There aren’t too many other major surprises tonight, although I can’t help but feel I’m watching a technically tighter group of musicians. With the exception of a clunky false start on either When You Sleep or Only Shallow, I forget which one, the songs sound more rehearsed tonight, as you’d expect from a band with a handful of reunion shows under its belt. Perhaps it’s because of my position in relation to the speakers, although more likely it’s because I’m sober this time, but the overall sound quality seems less muddy tonight, too.
I find myself enjoying some of the more unsung tunes like Cigarette in Your Bed, which I couldn’t even remember them playing in London, and the dirge-y Slow (also from the You Made Me Realise EP). Come In Alone and Blown A Wish are also pretty great.
I didn’t see anyone handing out earplugs at the start of the night this time round, and consequently You Made Me Realise manages to claim a few more victims than it did in London: from my vantage point I can see at least one person crying, which isn’t really a surprise. I’m pretty sure there are jet engines out there that kick out less noise than My Bloody Valentine at full tilt. And you wouldn’t put your head next to one of those, would you?
Manchester Set List:
I Only Said; When You Sleep; (When You Wake) You’re Still In A Dream; You Never Should; Cigarette In Your Bed; Come In Alone; Only Shallow; Thorn; Nothing Much To Lose; To Here Knows When; Blown A Wish; Slow;
Soon; Feed Me With Your Kiss; Sueisfine; You Made Me Realise
For a variety of reasons – work commitments, poor motivation, The Wire – I haven’t been to many gigs this year. I’m not counting or anything so I can’t give you hard figures, but I know I haven’t made it out to see a band since the Efterklang show in March, which is pretty weak for someone who spends most of their free time thinking, talking and writing about music. I’d been eyeing this one up for a while, though, and I was determined not to miss out. I even bought tickets for a change.
When this date was first announced a few months ago, I had been most enthusiastic about seeing Iron & Wine. I’m a long time fan of Sam Beam’s work – Our Endless Numbered Days was my favourite record of 2004 – and I wrote a pretty glowing review of his latest album for a print mag called Rock ‘n’ Reel late last year. But over the past months, while my interest in The Shepherd’s Dog has cooled, my appreciation and respect for Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago has spiralled into the realm of obsession. As a consequence, as I approached the bright lights of the Leadmill on Wednesday night I found myself consumed by thoughts of the support act rather than the headliner – “will it be a full band show or just as acoustic set?”, “will he play Skinny Love?” etc.
Little did I know it, but I was setting myself up for a huge disappointment: Bon Iver was only on stage for a measly 25 minutes to warm the crowd up for what turned out to be an Iron & Wine marathon. I felt robbed, even though I had no right to – I would have loved this arrangement two months ago – and I’m sure it coloured my experience of the evening.
But maybe there’s more to it.
Bon Iver’s five songs sounded fresh and exciting, with their sparse yet intriguing instrumentation. Justin Vernon was joined by two other musicians, an additional guitarist and a percussionist, and they managed to recreate the sound of For Emma with impressive accuracy. Skinny Love was probably the highlight for me, although opener Flume was fantastic too, but as Vernon and his collaborators wrapped the set up with a rousing rendition of Creature Fear I couldn’t help but think about the songs they hadn’t had time to play and how great an encore would have been.
In stark contrast, Iron & Wine seemed to play for hours. I didn’t time their set – and I must admit I punctuated it with a number of trips to the bar and one telephone conversation – but it was certainly too long, even for someone with a healthy working knowledge and appreciation of Sam Beam’s catalogue.
There were some refreshing versions of old favourites like Cinder and Smoke and the new songs, particularly Pagan Angel and A Borrowed Car, sounded sufficiently ‘big’, but the whole set just smacked of over-indulgence. As the evening progressed, the wholesome big band sound began to dwarf Beam’s gentle vocal, and arguably 90% of the songs outstayed their welcome by at least a few minutes.
The set had started out strongly with a handful of beautiful, sparsely arranged acoustic tracks performed by Beam and his sister, Sarah; I couldn’t help but feel that Beam would have been wise to slot a few similar numbers into the middle of his set, if only to break up the monotony of it all. Sadly, he didn’t, and as I caught myself yawning for the fiftieth time during a stretch of seemingly endless guitar noodling, I couldn’t help but think of Bon Iver and what might have been if the promoters had arranged a more democratic split in the performance times.
Efterklang isn’t a particularly quiet band. Tonight there are seven musicians onstage, each and every one making a beautiful racket. At times five band members are singing simultaneously. The man at the front of the formation, Casper Clausen, spends a large chunk of the evening jumping up and down, bashing misshapen cymbals and wailing into his microphone. Yet amongst all of this chaos, the guy next me still manages to take offence when I whisper something to a friend. I guess there’s something about an Efterklang show that makes doing anything but watch the band in awe something of a faux pas. It’s like going to the cinema, only louder. And better.
Efterklang by Benjamin Kürstein
The evening begins with a short set from Our Broken Garden a.k.a. Efterklang’s touring pianist Anna Brønsted. Her specialty is haunting piano music complemented by a rich and beautiful vocal, which she manipulates and double tracks by using loop pedals throughout the set. It’s gorgeous music, and a complete – and welcome – contrast to the grimy, black surroundings of Sheffield’s Corporation venue. She’s just signed to Bella Union in the UK and her first EP is coming out soon. Remember the name.
Having swiftly closed up a surprisingly well stocked Rumraket store, the boys and girls of Efterklang take to the stage dressed in an unusual beige and brown uniform. Any puzzled looks in the room are soon erased as the band works its way through one of the finest sets I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing in the last 12 months. Highlights are plenty, but I’m pretty sure that the spine-tingling Caravan (from last year’s Parades) is my favourite moment of the night.
Aside from the great music, it’s worth pointing out that an Efterklang show is great fun to watch. These musicians clearly love and believe in what they are doing, and their enthusiasm is truly infectious. Everyone seems to play half a dozen instruments, too, which is always fun to watch. Even drummer Thomas Husmer rises from his stool on occasion to offer vocals and trumpet. How many other drummers can do that?
Aside from the uniforms there’s nothing remotely gimmicky about tonight’s performance. It’s clearly well rehearsed – the musicianship is taut and impressive – but at the same time there is a feeling of spontaneity that almost makes you believe that Efterklang is playing these songs for the very first time, just for you. If only all live music was this special and, crucially, this much fun.
Billed as an Eat Your Own Ears Warehouse Party, this ultimately turned out to be just another gig at Plug (which is quite a nice venue as opposed to a warehouse). Outside the venue we were informed that due to a technical problem DJ sets from James Holden, Four Tet and Hot Chip would no longer be happening. I didn’t care too much; I was there to see Liars primarily and to check out the other bands, none of whom I’d heard much from.
Flat Pack Heroes started the night off energetically enough. At their best they reminded me of Wire circa-Pink Flag; at their worst, they sounded like just another tight, young punk band.
Foals came next. I didn’t have particularly high hopes as a) my friend had warned me that they might sound “a bit like Bloc Party” and b) “Foals?!” but they impressed me from the off with a captivating set of angular and rhythmical art-rock. True, some of their more traditional soundings songs did veer close to Bloc Party territory and the unintelligible vocals didn’t add a great deal but I heard more than enough here to encourage me to investigate Foals further.
Billed as the night’s headliners, New Young Pony Club seemed to have brought in a sizable chunk of the crowd and I suspect they played third so that their fans could get a reasonably early night, this being a Sunday and everything. They played an inoffensive set of indie that you can (if you’re that way inclined) dance to and everyone seemed to love it. As some drunk guy once remarked, people are strange…
The ever brilliant Liars staggered on a few beers later and I stood at the front of the stage and basked in the noise of droning guitars and tribal rhythms. I don’t know many Liars songs by name (although I’m guessing that one or two had ”Mt. Heart Attack” and “Drums” in the title) so I can’t run through the set as I normally might. Certainly a handful of tracks from their latest album made an appearance but I was secretly pleased that a decent chunk of the material came from Drums Not Dead, which is my favourite Liars record.
It came as no great shock to me that Liars were the best band of the evening. I fully expected that. What did surprise me was just how close behind them Foals were. They have a debut album out next year which TV On The Radio’s David Sitek is apparently producing. If they can capture the energy of their live show then that’s going to be some record.
Foals MySpace / Flat Pack Heroes MySpace / Liars MySpace / New Young Pony Club MySpace
This might sound a bit strange to Pitchfork regulars and Swedish readers (do I have any, other than my girlfriend?) but Jens Lekman was the support act here. This is a man whose second album proper just earned a hallowed 9.0 on the notoriously stingy reviews site and topped the album charts in his homeland. Granted, Josh Rouse is an established artist with a billion albums of gentle adult-orientated Americana under his belt but Jens Lekman is clearly a songwriter whose star is in the ascendency. Of course 90% of the crowd were there to see Rouse, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority left the venue talking about the weird Swedish guy who ditched his guitar in the final song, turned on a sample and performed a synchronised dance move with his sole band member, percussionist Tammy Karlsson.
One of the most interesting aspects of Lekman’s performance was that playing as a two-piece really didn’t seem to limit him or detract from the songs. He used a loop pedal to record and trigger the playback of backing vocals and later in the set I presume a CD player or an iPod was called upon to play a more complex sample. It was innovative without sounding stale or overly mechanical, and the music benefited as a result.
Prior to the show I hadn’t spent a great deal of time with Jens’ latest record, Night Falls Over Kortedala. In the twenty four hour period since the show finished I’ve listened to it four times. It’s a dead cert for my end of year top ten already. That says it all really. Oh yeah, I nearly forgot about Josh Rouse. He wasn’t bad either.
