Tag: British rock

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2011: #25 Lanterns on the Lake “Lungs quicken”

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Sometimes the way we classify and typify bands and sounds and try to put names to certain styles or movements really turns me off. Words like “Emo” and “Screamo“ and “Nugaze” and “Chillwave” and “Folktronica” just make me shake my head. I get it. And these terms often do aptly describe the music they are meant to represent. However, if I had heard the term “Folktronica”, for instance, in reference to Lanterns on the Lake before listening to their debut album, “Gracious tide, take me home”, I might never have picked it up.

As it stands right now, I don’t actually remember at all how I came across them. In 2011, I was listening to everything that was being released, an exercise in futile mass consumption that was initiated by a fledgling blog. I all of a sudden felt that I had to have my finger even more fully pressed down hard on the pulse of music, everything new and hip. It was futile because there’s just too much out there and I was forced to decide whether I liked something in fewer samples, one or two go arounds, rather than five or six. I was also discovering bands in bunches, which meant I wasn’t always getting the time I wanted with each album before I was on to the next. I’ve been trying to remedy this in the last couple of years, since putting that old blog to bed and starting afresh, to go back to spend more time with albums that did stick out amongst the rest and give them their due. “Gracious tide, take me home” is one of these and I’ve so been looking forward to spending more time with it to write this post.

Lanterns on the Lake are a five-piece from Newcastle-on-Tyne that has released three studio albums in total, a live album, and a handful of EPs since their formation in 2007. They recently toured in support of one of my very favourite bands, James, and by all accounts, they got on quite well. Listening to both bands, this doesn’t surprise me in the least. Like James, Lanterns on the Lake doesn’t just write music, as much as build it. Their sound is very atmospheric and big and beautiful.

“Lungs quicken”, the album opener, is a prime of example of what I speak. It’s washes of synths, a subdued electronic beat and the hint of strings. Lead vocalist Hazel Wilde lightly touches her brush to the canvas, breathy and whispery, a tinkling of keys. It makes you think that their name is perfect. Candles in paper lanterns, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, just visible in the mist out on the grey lake. And then the wind whips up, the music builds in volume and gusto, and the lanterns jostle on the waves, crashing and splashing but not going out. At five and a half minutes, “Lungs quicken” does just that, light breathing becomes breathless and just when you think you have to give up, it ends, leaving you wanting to start all over again.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.

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Albums

Best albums of 1987: #3 The Smiths “Strangeways, here we come”

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in these pages, The Smiths were ruined for me early on by my old friend and housemate John. It took me years to get over it, easing myself into them over the years, song by song. So although I had heard a number of the songs from the Manchester four-piece’s final album, “Strangeways, here we come”, I never actually listened to it from beginning to end until a few years ago, when I got it as part of the box set and I put the 180 gram slice of wax on my turntable for its first spin.

And yes, it was sweet.

By the time it was released, Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce, Johnny Marr, and Morrissey had been together as a band for only five years but had already released three prior studio albums, three compilations, and a boat load of singles. The band had already built up a cult following, the appreciation of the music press, and were just starting get the attention of the mainstream, music-buying public, scoring a couple of top ten singles in their final year. I keep using the word “final” here because the band split after the recording of “Strangeways, here we come” and before it was released. The word is that Johnny Marr took a break from the band and in ceasing communication, mistook an article claiming the band was finished as a plant to the press by Morrissey. And though they likely haven’t talked much since, the two principal songwriters have both agreed that this final album was the band’s best work together.

This, I think, is debatable and has definitely been much debated, but what can’t be argued is that it sits well amongst the influential indie pop band’s fine catalogue. So many great tunes, it was hard to pick just three for you but here they are nonetheless.

”Unhappy birthday”: This first track here was never released as a single but it’s likely the first tune from this album that I ever heard, due to its inclusion on a retro mixed tape that a friend of mine (not named John) made for me in university. I loved it then and still love it now. So much so that I included as part of my Top Five Tunes list I did for the band back in June. It’s a not-at-all-veiled hate song aimed at some unknown person. Acoustic strumming, harmonium whispers, howls, a dancing bass line, and a jaunty Morrissey, dishing jabs left and right. “And if you should die, I may feel slightly sad (But I won’t cry).” Exactly right.

”Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before”: “And so I drank one. It became four. And when I fell on the floor, I drank more.” Who knows what this song is about, really? There are references to drinking, buddhists planning mass murders, bicycle accidents leading to various painful injuries, and denials of lying. I cannot figure it out but should I really care? As long as we stop him (oh oh oh, stop him), if we’ve heard this one before. Thankfully none of us has, so we get the big drums, the booming bass, and more of Marr’s jangling Rickenbacker. This was a song that I used to skip over when I first got a copy of “Best… I” on CD but now I can’t stop from repeating it.

”Girlfriend in a coma”: “There were times when I could have murdered her. But you know, I would hate anything to happen to her.” So here’s a perfect example of Morrissey’s lyrical wizardry. In a two minute song, he encapsulates the mixed emotions of a young person dealing with having a girlfriend in a coma, so brilliantly, in fact, that he inspired a novel of the same name by Canadian writer Douglas Coupland. The song is catchy and joyful, shotgun drums and synthesized strings and arpeggiating guitars, belying the seriousness of the situation. A fact of which Morrissey keeps reminding us. “I know, I know, it’s serious.” Seriously good.

Check back next Thursday for album #2. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Dead Can Dance “Within the realm of the dying sun”
9. Spaceman 3 “The perfect prescription”
8. The Jesus And Mary Chain “Darklands”
7. Jane’s Addiction “Jane’s Addiction”
6. The Sisters of Mercy “Floodland”
5. The Cure “Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me”
4. U2 “The joshua tree”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 1987: #5 The Cure “Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me”

I was probably in 9th grade (around the time this album was released) when I first heard tell of The Cure. A friend of mine on the street, who I had played with growing up and those days, simply “hung out” with, told me one day that he was going to see them in concert, that very night, and he had gotten the band’s name shaved into the back of his head for the occasion. His older sister was bringing him and, now that I look back, it was probably a pre-requisite for her parents allowing her to go all the way to Toronto to see them with her friends. He rhymed off names of songs, none of which rung a bell. I didn’t have an older sister (or older brother for that matter) to introduce me to their music. Nope. I was, in fact, that older sibling that probably influenced the tastes of my younger brethren when I got into music in a big way a few years later.

I didn’t actually hear The Cure (in a conscious way) until a few years later when another of my neighbour friends played them for me and then, recorded sections, if not copies in full, of this album, “Staring at the sea”, and “Disintegration” on cassette for me. In this way, his favourite songs influenced my own, his tastes tending toward the more maudlin of their music, but later, when I caught and recorded a “spotlight” on them on MuchMusic, I started to find my own way in The Cure’s world.

“Kiss me kiss me kiss me” is the band’s seventh album and as double LPs go, it’s big, it’s got a lot of songs, and it’s quite eclectic. In my mind, it bridges the gap between the dark, “gothic” rock of “Faith” and “Pornography” and the pop sensibilities of “The head on the door”. It’s been widely publicized how hard those darker albums were on frontman Robert Smith and how much he hated the “goth” label. It’s no wonder he wanted to write lighter pop songs in the mid-80s and did so successfully. The songs on “Kiss me kiss me kiss me” are a good mix of the dark and plodding and the light and bouncy and the rest lie somewhere in between. It resulted in The Cure achieving their highest charting album to date and made them a name in North America.

My three picks for you from this album all fall under the “single” category but one of them is one that you wouldn’t think obvious as a single. Have a look and a listen and let me know if there are others on this great album that you prefer.

”Why can’t I be you?”: This wasn’t one of the ones off the album that would’ve been highlighted to me by my friend John. In fact, I think the first I might have heard of it was the extended remix of it on “Mixed up”, which I purchased on a whim when I was younger. I think it was the last record I ever bought before I started collecting again, five or so years ago. Sadly (but not too sadly because it was quite warped), I have no idea where it is now (have no fear, I picked up the reissue a couple months ago) but I remember not being super impressed with the remix of “Why can’t I be you?” at the time. Over the years, though, it has grown on me, a bouncy and upbeat number that features a barrage of synthesized horns and Robert Smith growling and skitting and trilling and scatting, really making a lot of vocal sounds not typically made in a pop song.

”Catch”: This tune, on the other hand, was one of my friend John’s favourites. He included it on a mixed tape he once made for me and I didn’t understand it at all at the time. It just seemed absurd and weird but then at some point, I made it past all Robert Smith’s “do do do”s and listened to his lyrics. “And I remember she used to fall down a lot. That girl was always falling, again and again, and I used to sometimes try to catch her. But never even caught her name.” Apparently inspired by a line in one of the Rocky movies where the title character is whispering to a comatose Adrian, the words are actually quite lovely. And in this context, the mellow shuffling beat that is given a lazy feel with synthesized strings and the flanged guitar that comes seemingly out of nowhere at the chorus, all seem just right.

”Just like heaven”: This track, the third single released off the album found itself on the top of the list when did my Top five tunes post, showcasing my favourite songs by The Cure, early last year. Yeah. So it’s my favourite tune by this band and one of the big reasons this album became a favourite of mine. I’m not going to go on here and repeat words that you can find in that other post, except to say this: “‘Show me, show me, show me, how you do that trick. The one that makes me scream,’ she said. ‘The one that makes me laugh,’ she said. And threw her arms around my neck.” Those words make me want to get up and dance with wild abandon. Every time.

Check back next Thursday for album #4. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Dead Can Dance “Within the realm of the dying sun”
9. Spaceman 3 “The perfect prescription”
8. The Jesus And Mary Chain “Darklands”
7. Jane’s Addiction “Jane’s Addiction”
6. The Sisters of Mercy “Floodland”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.