Friday, February 15, 2008

Video of the month #4: Mystery Jets - Young Love

Mystery Jets keep getting better and better. This Laura Marling featuring, Erol Alkan produced, track is not only a great song, but has a corking (if slightly nauseating) video to accompany it. With both Christmas and Valentine's Day related songs released in recent months, I am really looking forward to the next themed single - Mother's Day? Easter? Who cares - it's bound to be great!




Add to Technorati Favorites

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Cass Mccombs - That's That [Domino single]


Cass McCombs’ last offering (following his debut A) PREfection is one of those lost gems of records I had almost forgotten about, and it is with a mixture of reminiscence and intrigue that new material from the enigmatic Californian is greeted. Despite some six years of mutterings of big things, he has as yet failed to make the waves for which he initially seemed destined, critically as well as commercially. Three years have now passed since PREfection’s release and the first taster from new Dropping The Writ album finally arrives in the form of blog favourite ‘That’s That’.


The song is a story about a runaway girl, suggested rather than told through minimalist brushstrokes. McCombs is a songwriter whose often obtuse, but generally poetic, lyrics beg as much attention as the music itself. ‘That’s That’ is no different and includes some perfectly aching poignancy with the refrain “playthings are laid to waste, thrown out to make better space”. Elsewhere the understated words delicately tell of mundanity and desperation: “So I got a job cleaning toilets at a nightclub in Baltimore”.


Musically things seem to have shifted a little in the three years since PREfection, and this first pointer from Dropping the Writ could loosely be described as 80s-sounding Americana, though it is quite singular in sound. McCombs has spent much of his musical life travelling from place to place and this record feels just as nomadic. It is rambling yet purposeful, held together and driven on by the rhythm of the stand out bassline, as regular as an engine turning over. The voice delivering the lines, too, is suitably yearning and fragile and the air of resignation of McCombs delivery of the gorgeous line “I guess that’s that, almost shorter than a dream and definitely of less note” perfectly distils the essence of the song.


‘That’s That’ is further proof of McCombs songwriting prowess, which, combining simplicity with opaqueness, is open to endless deconstruction. If this is anything to go by, then Dropping the Writ will demand some serious listening time.


****

First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.


Add to Technorati Favorites