Native Speaker - Braids

Braids

Native Speaker

Flemish Eye / Kanine Records

Usually, when you describe an album as ‘unsafe’, it’s with some sort of ‘it’s so-good-it’ll-make-your-face-melt’ cliché. With Native Speaker, it’s because I find myself inclined to balance my laptop precariously over the edge of my bathtub, while I sink slowly underneath, and mellow for as long as I can hold my breath. Braids – this Albertan, chill-core four-piece – might well be the death of me. But what a way to go, ‘ey.

Braids sound like the farm-grown younger sisters of Animal Collective, who’ve ditched the electronic edge for a much more pastoral feel – opener ‘Lemonade’ follows the same pile-then-peel layering as most of Merriweather Post Pavilion, each new pitch and instrumental layer rising from previous like bubbles boiling through water, though Raphaelle Standell-Preston vocals are notably less static and reverb fuelled than Noah Lennox’s (aka AC’s Panda Bear). The song washes well, and leaves us less sceptical of follower ‘Plath Hearth’, which is laid out more like ‘Disney musical number’ than art rock, but it’s pleasant nonetheless – the swiping violins and vocal intonations at its close giving clear allusions to Arcade Fire and Régine Chassagne (particularly earlier recordings), their hometown of Montreal perhaps having an effect as the album’s recording location.

Undeniably, it is Raphaelle’s vocals that centralise the lasting image of Native Speaker, effortlessly bounding it seems between the fragility and naivety of a lost child (how on earth she managed this with the lyrics ‘I’m fucked up, fucked up, fucked up’ in ‘Glass Deers’, I don’t know), to the unhinged sound of a mid-20s meltdown (‘Lammicken’). At times, her vocals are so deeply accented and empowering that the effect is almost ethnic; the sound of the savannah, of open space and wide, bellowing fields of music (if we’re keeping to the Disney vibe, think ‘Circle of Life’).

I don’t know, perhaps I’m revelling in this album a tad too much. I was in an utterly foul mood when I came to listen to it, but somehow Braids have managed to wash away that whole frame of mind. Ebbing, coursing, yet serene – like a poolside half-echo, their sound is profoundly comforting, and makes for a very easy listen. 

To call this mood music really doesn’t do it any justice at all, but needless to say, it’s cheered me up.

9/10

Hearts on Hold - Tu Fawning

Hearts on Hold
Tu Fawning
7/10

A dusk-lit waltz through the forests of the Pacific Northwest, as imagined by Tim Burton. Tu Fawning’s debut Hearts On Hold answers a question I’ve been pining over for some time: What would happen if the pseudo-ethnic forest dweller vibe of Florence and The Machine was given to someone that wouldn’t shit all over it, then shove it down my throat every waking hour of the day? (...Just me?)

Here, the Portland quartet – brainchild of vocalist Corrina Repp and guitarist Joe Haege (of the erratic 31Knots) – give us their own take on the nymph-noir, to far better results; a land where Portishead meets Sleigh Bells, and a lumbering drumbeat leads the way. In their own words, a sound as if ‘a giant is walking through a valley’, ‘a piano is stabbed in a 1920s basement’, ‘drums are beaten on a mountaintop’ or ‘that you’re singing in a cave’. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

The death knell opening notes of ‘Multiply A House’ is a perfect ease in; an unsettling marching number, coupled with the chanting of what seems a particularly unsettling clan of possessed women. Alongside the rolling tribal drums of ‘Felt Sense’, with its ethereal Zola Jesus-esque vocals and percussive backing, there is definitely some sort of homely, campfire feel here – even if it’s a bit glum and overcast.

Luckily, this doesn’t last – though the pessimism is pretty unrelenting. ‘Apples and Oranges’, is the albums strongest lyrical outing, dabbling with the deeply cynical, the glass half empty, a tale needing to be told – and it is Joe and Corrina who deserve to be telling it, vocals shared over gentle piano and shrieks of shrink-wrapped violins. (‘Apples and Oranges, what’s the difference, they’re both just going to rot...’). Sadly, the ethereality really starts to bore, becoming painfully overbearing – almost a waste of such striking lyrics.

Following the thankful return of pace and drumbeats in ‘Just Too Much’, we’re quickly swept into Portishead territory, with ‘Diamonds in the Forest’ and lead single ‘I Know You Know’. Eerie soundscapes with off-set rhythm, detached vocal delivery with a demonic edge – it’s all here. The uneasiness is rarely tiring, rather endearing and theatrical, with a touch a 1920’s noir mixed in.

On whole, a strong debut effort – patchy, but lying low and open among foothills of grandeur. Mountains will rise, and Tu Fawning will hopefully rise to brighter and more pronounced heights.

And I bloody hope so, because I’m all out of dark words to describe them.

Zeroes QC - Suuns

Zeroes QC
Suuns
8.5/10

Fall EP Zeroes left Suuns floating in a half-lit, minimal and genre-less cavity – perhaps only faintly touched by the likes of Battles, Television or Clinic beforehand. With debut proper Zeroes QC, we are dragged far deeper, following the Montreal four-piece into an uncharted abyss, where darkness swathes and edges blur – where Suuns lead with laser-guided precision into a sinking state of mesmeric foreboding, a sprawl of synthesised doom; the Suunshine state of mind (I’m sorry but a pun was inevitable, even if the name is pronounced ‘Soons’).

Basically, lots of big and meaningless words go some way to explain this album. But pretence aside, it’s quite simply, bloody good. Suuns have the curious ability to teeter on a different cliff edge at every moment, such as during opener ‘Armed for Peace’ – a number practically gagging to throw itself off and into the oncoming flood promised by swirling synth-driven waves and splintering Nick Zinner-esque guitar riffs. Centrepiece ‘Sweet Nothing’ is the same; tantalisingly building through its minimalist underground disco beat into a sudden a rare rush of scratching melody, quite suddenly colliding with a wall of nothingness at its close.

Suuns sense of pacing is impeccable; never do they allow their instruments to clash, nor are they untidy with their sound effects – and the preference of an extended instrumental over solos adds further to the solidarity of the record. Though this may have its downsides (‘Marauder’ is so short and generic that it simply comes across as lazy, and ‘Up Past The Nursery’s clinical minimalism appears stagnant when following ‘Sweet Nothing’), the album never drags, aided largely by the internal contrast of the songs. ‘Gaze’ is highlighted by its splattered saxophone finale, ‘Arena’ by its arcade-walking intro and ‘Organ Blues’ by its deep and resounding organ bass line.

In essence, this near perfect balance Suuns maintain between several cliff edges leaves only one thing certain. Zeroes QC has put Suuns at the edge of their gangplank, and it is this next step into the unknown that’ll show what these guys are truly made of. I look forward to what comes next.