Album review: The Smile’s Wall of Eyes sees Radiohead offshoot flirt with jazz
The Smile can’t hope to completely shed associations with its famous sibling act, Radiohead — and with a release as singular and strong as Wall of Eyes, why should it?
Album reviews for week of January 26 2024:
ROCK/EXPERIMENTAL
Wall of Eyes
The Smile
XL
“You know me,” sings Thom Yorke during a track of the same name on The Smile’s second album. While many of us can claim a certain familiarity with his voice and approach after several decades of Radiohead records, Yorke has never come across as particularly knowable. He’s always been more likely to skirt any definitive meaning in his lyrics, subtly massaging open-ended phrases into evocations of unnamed portent. Similarly, no official bio accompanied Wall of Eyes: this album is intended to be taken on its own, despite the obvious weight of expectations that manifests whenever Yorke works with Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. Re-joining those two following 2022’s A Light For Attracting Attention are Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner and longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. Also key to this outing is the London Contemporary Orchestra, whose nebulous strings are integral to the shapeshifting arrangements. The debut’s jazz predilections surface again here, and it’s no accident that The Smile issued a live EP recorded at Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival – and also debuted this album’s decided standout Bending Hectic on that same stage.
But the trio’s flirtations with jazz are more about possibility than regimentation, and these eight songs often spill out like a continuous in-the-room jam that very much encourages spontaneity. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the title track opens the album with an acoustic guitar strum conveying the breezy whimsy of bossa nova. Or that Teleharmonic foregrounds a supple bass line partway through – Yorke and Greenwood share guitar and bass duties in the band – before adding increasingly bustling woodwinds and percolations. Under Our Pillows is especially off-kilter, going from prickly guitar notes to loping overall repetition before trailing off into the ether. Friend of a Friend most clearly evokes Radiohead, thanks to Yorke’s clearer vocal delivery and a prominent spine of piano (think 2001’s Pyramid Song). But the eight-minute elephant in the room is Bending Hectic, which commences with jazzy mood setting and murmured vocals before the strings signal rising tension and the whole thing shifts into an ambush of brooding, distorted rock that flashes back to 1997’s OK Computer or even earlier in the band’s discography. The Smile can’t hope to completely shed associations with its famous sibling act, but in that moment the band seems to relish the chance to riff off it as merely one more passing reference point.
Doug Wallen
JAZZ
Immersion Lure
Phil Slater
Independent
With his fourth album, Sydney trumpeter Phil Slater continues the fascinating experiment he began with his 2019 album The Dark Pattern. His objective is “combining the sound palette and texture of the jazz quintet instrumentation with minimalist compositional devices”. Five of his beautiful compositions are played on a 52-minute album, with Matt Keegan (tenor sax), Matt McMahon (piano), Brett Hirst (double bass), and Simon Barker (drums) once again on deck. All acknowledged jazz masters, their playing on this album is regrettably subdued in a minimalist soundscape where their contributions, despite occasional wonderful moments, to my ears sound tentative, uncertain and inhibited. Ironically this is not the case with Slater’s own playing, which is the opposite of minimalist. Every track without exception reveals his exceptional mastery in trumpet solos that are breathtaking in their tone, ideas, virtuosic control of the instrument and freedom of expression. I have rarely ever heard such ravishing trumpet brilliance. One would have to go to the very best of Miles Davis to experience such comparable mastery.
Eric Myers
ROCK
Little Rope
Sleater-Kinney
Loma Vista
Forged in the US Pacific Northwest punk scene, Sleater-Kinney pulled off a fiery seven-album run in the space of a single decade before hitting pause in 2006. Since returning in the mid-2010s, the once-austere guitar/drums trio has experimented with wider instrumentation and stylistic flourishes, flirting with art pop on 2019’s The Center Won’t Hold and classic rock on 2021’s Path of Wellness. Little Rope continues that embrace of new-found textures, from the ricocheting keyboard motif capping off Don’t Feel Right to the overdriven flare-ups punctuating Six Mistakes. While that same reliance on fluttering effects dampens the initial immediacy of Dress Yourself, it still provides the most devastating lyrical turn here. Deeply informing the entire record is the death of co-founder Carrie Brownstein’s mother and stepfather in 2022, and her close-knit exchanges with fellow singer/guitarist Corin Tucker are all the more effective for their subtlety and control. Even after 11 albums, that core duo still brings out the best in each other.
Doug Wallen
FOLK/BLUES
I Kept These Old Blues
Muireann Bradley
Tompkins Square
Championed by US guitar maestro Stefan Grossman, England’s Jools Holland and other music luminaries, Muireann Bradley – a teenager from County Donegal in Ireland’s northwest corner – is the unlikely new keeper of America’s folk and country blues flame. Evidence comes in a stunning debut album from the 17-year-old, in which she honours the tradition while putting a refreshing new spin on predominantly classic songs from the 1920s/30s written by legends such as Blind Blake, Mississippi John Hurt and Elizabeth Cotten. Recorded live in the studio in mostly first or second takes, with Bradley backing herself on acoustic guitar, I Kept These Old Blues is utterly compelling – from the opening cover of Candyman to the closing rendition of another standard, Freight Train. Standouts in between include a couple of instrumentals that showcase her flawless fretboard work and nuanced guitar fingerpicking. Two songs with Police in the title highlight the fidelity of her precocious blues voice in high and low register. File Miss Bradley somewhere between American early-blues female recording artists Ma Rainey and Memphis Minnie.
Tony Hillier
CLASSICAL
Shichiseki
Michael Kieran Harvey
Move Records
When it comes to performing contemporary piano music, Michael Kieran Harvey has few equals. Thanks to his wide technical armoury and restless artistic spirit, he can take on a vast array of challenges and do so with extraordinary facility. Japanese influences open further doors for the Australian pianist in his newest album, Shichiseki, which brings together six archival recordings from 2008-2020. Move Records’s decision to add them to its ever-expanding collection is well justified. Harvey and violinist Miwako Abe whip up enormous gestural force in Kanako Okamoto’s Shichiseki, which commemorates Japan’s ancient annual Star Festival. Inspired by Taiko drumming, the pounding rhythms of Mark Pollard’s Beating the Rusty Nail are great fun. Also memorable is Andrian Pertout’s infectiously rhythmic Rishis and Saints, Harvey here being joined by cellist Alister Barker. A strange inclusion are recordings of vocal works by Purcell, Wolf and Bach from Barrie Kosky’s 2010 stage adaptation of The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allen Poe). With Harvey accompanying the actor-singer Martin Niedermair, the results are bizarrely out of place and over-theatrical.
Graham Strahle
Album reviews for week of January 19 2024:
POP-PUNK
Saviors
Green Day
Reprise
In early 2020, a billboard promoting a new record from Green Day started doing the rounds online. “NO FEATURES,” it boasted. “NO SWEDISH SONGWRITERS. NO TRAP BEATS. 100% PURE UNCUT ROCK.” If you can believe it, 2020 actually got worse from there. The ensuing album, Father of All Motherf..kers, was the most desperate and midlife-crisis sounding that the Southern Californian pop-punk trio had ever sounded – there were no features or Swedish songwriters, yes, but there weren’t any good songs either. So, in 2024 – 30 years after its milestone breakthrough with Dookie, 20 years after its glorious comeback with American Idiot, and after 15 years worth of albums proclaiming Green Day’s prodigal return with underwhelming results – where have we landed? Good news upfront: Saviors, the band’s 14th, is certainly its best since 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown. The lion’s share of its 45-minute runtime is occupied by stadium-sized rock-outs, exemplified by catchy stomp-along like opener The American Dream is Killing Me and Corvette Summer, as well as the skate-punk throwbacks 1981 and Look Ma, No Brains. Rob Cavallo, who had the Midas touch of production on the band’s best albums, once again makes Green Day sound like a million bucks – and, more importantly, a genuine 100% pure uncut rock band.
With all of that said, eventually the jet-black hair dye comes out in the wash and the band starts showing its collective age (51, if you must know). Billie Joe Armstrong, a father of two, has absolutely no business singing the question “Do you want to be my girlfriend?” on Bobby Sox – even if it attempts a bisexual flip by subbing in “boyfriend” later in the piece. For every punk action, too, there is an equal and opposite mid-tempo reaction that drags the whole proceedings down. Goodnight Adeline, Father to a Son and closer Fancy Sauce all aim for lighters-in-the-air emotion but are executed in a manner that poses a far more cardinal sin: being deathly boring. No, Green Day doesn’t sound like it’s making albums at gunpoint anymore, like it did for basically the entire 2010s. By that same token, however, that doesn’t make Saviors … well, Green Day’s saviour. There’s still a long road back to redemption after its latter-day meltdown and creative decline. Nevertheless, kudos has been earned by Green Day for hitchin’ a ride back in the right direction, miles away from the dreaded 2020 billboard.
David James Young
HIP-HOP/FUNK
So, Where Are We?
Citizen Kay
Independent
It’s been a while since we’ve properly heard from Kojo Ansah. Following 2017’s Belly of the Beast, the Ghanaian-Australian rapper/singer sidelined his output as Citizen Kay to establish himself as a producer. He hasn’t been completely silent: in 2020 he released the playful collaboration Funny Business with his brother Kofi, who is now much better known as the multi-award-winning artist Genesis Owusu. This low-key return proves mellower than his past material, though with a similar focus on live instrumentation. Ansah taps fellow Canberrans Steve Read, Koebi Faumui and Keo for guest spots, adding fresh elements to an already varied record. It can feel a bit digressive thanks to multiple interludes, but Ansah absolutely shines on the lushly rendered It Is What It Is and the falsetto-licked You Know What You’re Doin’. He’s much more interested in mapping out wider realms of funk and soul than just rapping: he sings gently over piano on Been Here Before, then dabbles in spoken word on the cosmic 10-minute finale See Your Face. Even in those exploratory modes, Ansah retains his breezy charisma.
Doug Wallen
FOLK/BLUES
Les Cousins
Various Artists
Cherry Red/Planet
A bona fide galaxy of stars is showcased on this superb 72-track, triple-disc retrospective compilation that positively demands name-dropping. Les Cousins was a legendary music club that operated from the mid-1960s in the basement of a restaurant in London’s Soho. Many of the artists featured – mostly captured in pristine live recordings – went on to national and international fame, most notably the then nascent Paul Simon and Cat Stevens. The reputations of fellow emerging artists of the era — such as John Martyn, Nick Drake, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Ralph McTell and Sandy Denny, and many others that are included in the box-set — were also forged during sessions at a venue that was famed for its “all-nighters”. Highlighted alongside these revered folk performers, singer-songwriters and acoustic guitar pickers are some of the admirable acts that helped create the British blues boom, such as the finest English singers of the genre and era in Long John Baldry and Jo Ann Kelly, and influential legends like Davey Graham and Alexis Korner.
Tony Hillier
JAZZ
Composers Plus Vol. 3: Live at the Jazzlab
ATM15 Big Band
Independent
If you wish to traverse the sounds that are possible in Australian big band jazz, look no further than the mastery of Melbourne’s composer/arranger Andrew Murray. This is the third in his series Composers Plus Live At The Jazzlab, recorded February 7, 2019. Five saxophones, four trumpets, and four trombones are atop his usual great rhythm section: Darrin Archer (piano), Tamara Murphy (bass) and Hugh Harvey (drums). Three new compositions/arrangements from James Bowers, Scott van Gemert and Eugene Ball are showcased, covering many bases, from the traditional and melodic to the cacophonic avant-garde. Murray beautifully redefines two standards, and arranges a rather abstract Paul Williamson composition, Talking in Pictures. Along the way some of Melbourne’s most distinguished improvisers are featured, including Ball (trumpet), Julien Wilson (tenor sax), Jordan Murray (trombone), Tim Wilson (alto sax) and others. An interesting inclusion is Sydney’s Jade MacRae singing a spirited version of Perfect Stranger, arranged by the American Bobby Watson, but transcribed by Murray from a Kerrie Biddell TV performance.
Eric Myers
JAZZ
I Told The Ocean Your Name
Dianne Cripps
Independent
Singer Dianne Cripps, originally from Virginia USA but now in Australia, has released an impressive debut album with eight tracks. She has co-written five originals with Matt Thomson, who won the 2021 Wangaratta piano competition, and assembled a formidable backing quartet: Casey Golden (piano), Felix Lalanne (guitars), Elsen Price (double bass) and Ed Rodrigues (drums and percussion). Flautist Keyna Wilkins appears on one track. Cripps’s songs are mainly about love and its familiar bittersweet vicissitudes, while their harmonic changes are gorgeously attractive, the product of a real jazz sensibility. The three non-original compositions are strong redefinitions of great tunes: Sting’s Roxanne; Neil Young’s classic Old Man; and I’ll Fly Away, a 1930s-era gospel hymn transformed here into jazz. All tracks have distinctive, clever time-feels, maximising the possibilities in Cripps’s music. Intensely beautiful solos are played throughout. In Roxanne, for example, note Price’s haunting bowed bass improvisation, followed by Lalanne’s singing guitar solo. And on I’ll Fly Away, listen for Golden’s great piano solo; he is flying, too.
Eric Myers
Album reviews for week of January 12 2024:
INDIE ROCK
No Place Like Home
Vacations
Nettwerk
They say to write what you know, and Vacations singer/guitarist Campbell Burns does exactly that on No Place Like Home. The dislocating cycle of touring deeply informs his band’s third album, complete with snippets of flight announcements and tales of intercontinental calls made from hotel rooms. Newly relocated to Los Angeles, where the album was recorded, Burns has seen his humble Newcastle quartet leap dramatically in popularity thanks to TikTok. The platform propelled 2017’s Young to platinum sales in America, with 2018’s Telephones going gold. That’s remarkable for a band whose plaintive vocals and chiming guitar jangle are decidedly low-key. Writing and singing his lyrics with a mix of sighing melancholy and probing compassion, Burns makes his personal concerns feel universal, even after receiving a diagnosis of Pure OCD. That turning point helped to explain the sway of intrusive thoughts over his mental health, with Burns referencing the phenomenon on the Phoenix-esque Over You (“I’m so obsessed over you”) and the rippling ballad Terms & Conditions. On the latter, he likens moving forward to “learning to walk again” as he accepts therapy and a recent break-up.
No Place Like Home sees Burns flanked by bassist Jake Johnson, lead guitarist Nate Delizzotti, and drummer Joseph Van Lier, who are reliable for crisp catchiness but also open to dabbling in electronic and Americana elements. The brisk opener Next Exit drops briefly into demo-like acoustic form at the bridge, while the title track slows those crystalline melodies to stoke a foggy mood of resignation. A clear emotional centrepiece, Midwest pivots to vaporous drum machine and synths as Burns admits to an unhelpful pattern of starting relationships just before heading off on tour again. The other song here that most breaks from Vacations’ consistent jangle is the closing Lost in Translation, an indie folk tune that appropriately wavers with uncertainty. If you’re wondering how Vacations broke out from a crowded pack of Australian bands on both social media and the world stage, it’s right there in Burns’ songwriting. Musing on the nagging passage of time and the quicksand pull of unhealthy habits, he taps into relatable woes without cheapening the experience. And as heavy as some of his themes might get, the music’s lighter and brighter delivery drives ever closer to what feels like resolution.
Doug Wallen
ROCK/PSYCH
Super American Eagle
Super American Eagle
Cheersquad
Much like the band’s name, Super American Eagle’s debut album is a bit over-the-top and not remotely self-serious. Led by The Dandy Warhols’ Brent DeBoer on vocals and drums, the Melbourne power trio fills out its stoner-friendly psych rock with Immigrant Union guitarist Bob Harrow and longtime Courtney Barnett bassist Dave Mudie. The result is a smoke-choked time warp, with opener Yes introducing not just a mighty forward momentum but also DeBoer’s formidable wail and throwback lyrics about “rockin’ and a-reelin’”. While the list of notable antecedents is too long to name, fans of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin should be especially chuffed with the album’s mix of craggy repetition and breakout bluster. This isn’t all relentless riffing, though: Trampling lapses into shaggy folk before the closing Mac swirls and swells for nearly nine minutes, complete with rippling piano and a yidaki undercurrent. There’s a real sense of crafting a calling card for what must be a fully saturated live show, making the most of every fuzz pedal in sight.
Doug Wallen
FOLK/ROCK
Act of Disappearing
Winterbourne
Island/Universal
Winterbourne’s second album is a bounty of perky throwbacks. One can easily imagine flipping through the radio dial and hitting a song like A Very Excellent Day, only to assume it’s a lesser-known Paul Simon gem. Or stumble onto immaculate harmonising that alternately evokes The Beatles and Crosby, Stills & Nash. That retro vibe also comes down to how Central Coast duo James Draper and Jordan Brady arrange these songs, mingling acoustic guitar and bright keyboards against a persistently clean and snappy backbeat. The lyrics feel just as timeless, recounting moments as quaint as enjoying a glass of lemonade or admiring everyday marvels of the natural world. Such innocent themes can be credited to a loose concept about an idyllic realm called Angelo Fair, while that grandiose framing device also encourages Draper and Brady to lavish attention upon every ornate detail. After releasing an entirely acoustic version of its upbeat and polished 2019 debut Echo of Youth, Winterbourne strikes a rewarding balance between those two sides here.
Doug Wallen
JAZZ
Torque
Tourismo
ABC Jazz
Two extraordinary musicians won the prestigious National Jazz Awards competition at Wangaratta: drummer Alex Hirlian (2018); and pianist Matt Thomson (2021). Their brilliant quintet Tourismo features Michael Avgenicos (tenor saxophone), Josh Meader (guitar) and Nick Henderson (double bass), playing eight compositions, mostly written by the two co-bandleaders. Even if their time-feels suggest a rock approach, the presence of acoustic bass and grand piano in the soundscape results in authentic jazz, full of knowledge and beauty. The flowering of jazz in this country, reflected on this page over several years, is arguably the outcome of unique qualities in Australian cultural life, and contiguously the influence of those musicians who’ve studied at the source in the USA. On Torque, the US pianist Jason Moran — with whom Thomson studied in Boston — identifies a “movement” that is brewing among the current generation of Australian jazz musicians, the advanced nature of which is now coming to be appreciated. This movement is a significant Australian phenomenon, and I feel that Tourismo is unquestionably in its vanguard.
Eric Myers
INDIE PROG
The Secret To Life
FIZZ
Decca/Universal
Once the strict province of ageing rockers looking for something to do between trips to rehab, the term “supergroup” took on a fresh new meaning in 2023. Spearheaded by the astounding success of all-female folk/rock act Boygenius, new and exciting collections of otherwise established indie musicians are seeing if their songwriting magic can be recreated in new group settings. London’s Fizz — comprising four boundary-pushing alternative musicians who have already worked with each other on solo projects — is the latest of these experiments and one that yields significant fruit. Songs like High In Brighton veer off in surprising directions, joyously evoking the experimentation of Belle & Sebastian with the manic energy of The Go! Team or !!! (Chk Chk Chk). Whether bringing in farmyard instruments and prog-folk stylings on I Just Died, or grunge and glam elements on Hell Of A Ride, the quartet clearly has pop energy running through its veins, resulting in a clutch of songs that are delightfully challenging while still being eminently listenable. Seriously good – and seriously good fun.
Jonathan Seidler