Chris Cohen – Chris Cohen

My relationship with Chris Cohen's music began with ‘Odyssey’, a Cohen-penned track on Deerhoof’s The Runners Four, which remains one of my favourites in their formidable discography. (I was also lucky enough to see Deerhoof live during their Runners Four tour.) That song's gentle, lilting nature, at odds with the majority of Deerhoof's full-throttle garage-rock, struck a chord with me. I sought out his 2012 debut Overgrown Path thanks to Eleanor Friedberger's Baker’s Dozen piece on The Quietus – and I’ve followed Cohen’s output ever since.

A recent in-depth interview with Aquarium Drunkard focused on the influence of Cohen’s parents’ recent divorce on these songs. While there are references to his estranged father in gorgeous singles 'Edit Out' and 'Green Eyes', overall the album feels as much about coming to terms with one's place in the world and how we learn from each generation’s mistakes. What resonates with me most is that sense of longing for connection across time; the sinking feeling that you’ll never quite have the relationship with your family that you hoped for.

Part of the reason the backstory to this album resonates so strongly with me is that I lost my father to cancer in 2016. Although I now live in Australia and he's always lived back in England, I was lucky enough to spend two uninterrupted weeks with him before he became too frail. Even though there was plenty of unsaid stuff hanging between us, I feel like I came to terms with the fact that he wasn’t the man I wanted him to be. That feeling of acceptance, however painful, permeates this deeply empathetic LP.

The atmosphere of the album is typified by gently swaying opener ‘Song They Play’, which sounds like a cousin of As If Apart’s ‘The Mender’. The three lovely singles follow, including the spiralling bass-and-organ-driven groove of 'Sweet William', before folk staple 'House Carpenter' offers a welcome change of pace, its droning arrangement lulling the listener towards the end of side A after the dense harmonic shifts of the first four songs. Side B opens especially elegantly with 'Twice in a Lifetime', and album closer 'No Time To Say Goodbye' is heartbreakingly beautiful, buoyed heavenward by its beatific sax solo.

It's interesting to note that the album was mastered by legendary engineer Bernie Grundman, responsible for such classics as Steely Dan’s Aja. Chris Cohen has a wondrous depth and warmth, deft arrangements, and an intimate feel to Cohen's vocal delivery. Even though Cohen has an enviable melodic sensibility and plays the majority of the instruments with aplomb, there are tantalising glimpses of expansive new directions, such as the ending of 'What Can I Do', where there's a suggestion of a moody coda that's cruelly faded out. And while Cohen's wildly expressive guitar playing provides some searing counterpoint to the relatively serene songs, it would be amazing to hear where his songwriting could venture given further instrumental collaboration. (All of the guest musicians here make notable contributions, especially saxophonist Kasey Knudsen.)

Overall, Chris Cohen is another superb addition to Cohen's discography – and one I'll be revisiting for months to come. It's full of tuneful goodness, counterbalanced by a bittersweet edge, and I'm looking forward to receiving my vinyl in the mail.

[Chris Cohen is out now on Captured Tracks.] 

Feather Beds – Blooming

Michael Orange (The Star Department, Soft Bones) is a chef of the sublime, bringing familiar musical elements together so beautifully that it occasionally defies belief. Don’t get me wrong, the recipe is simple: impossibly dreamy washes of guitars, synths and other hard-to-identify textures, juxtaposed against crisp drum patterns. On recent single ‘Soft Yellow’, the real magic lies in the drop at 2:29 – the moment after the break when the beat returns, ratcheted up a notch, and the song starts to run away at a heady clip, chased by a gorgeous synth melody, raising the hairs on the back of your neck. Get a load of this:

Elsewhere, the momentum is sustained from the get-go by surges of guitars ('Drip Feed'), or is withheld in favour of vertiginous, atmospheric drifting ('Fear of Water'). While Feather Beds' debut The Skeletal System sounded more vulnerable and home-spun, Blooming feels lush and robust, able to carry the listener a significant distance, suspended aloft on clouds of ambient-pop.

The only criticism I could level at this release is that Michael’s vocal melodies tend to follow a similar contour from song to song, but when the overall feel of the album is this beatific, such nit-picking feels mean-spirited. Especially when not a moment is wasted across these 35 minutes. The only option is to go back for more.

And the more I listen to Blooming, the more it keeps, y’know, what’s the word...

[Blooming is released on Moderna Records on 27th October.]

Jonathan David Shaw – Waa

Here's a first for dots and loops: a guest review! A good job too, as I haven't written much lately, plus it's an album by Jonathan David Shaw, the lead singer and acoustic guitarist in my band, Summon the Birds. This review of Jon's new solo album Waa comes courtesy of C.J. Lahey...

Armed with an acoustic guitar, vocals and late-night candle-lit eiderdown reverb, Jonathan David Shaw (JDS) delivers what could be his most accessible album since 2005’s conceptual Boo.

What delineates this from JDS’s other works is a certainty that steers the album confidently through 13 lush tracks. The welcome mat track, 'Overture', is an appropriately sized and framed instrumental blueprint through which the album unveils.

JDS’s vocals, while not hardening in the sense of cement, are certainly more defined, stronger and more purposeful than in the past. In Waa, the way his vocals shape his lyrics is almost akin to a melodic actor, allowing the dense and earthy imagery of his words to form. Tracks like ‘Bird on a Branch’, ‘Run Like You're Never Still’ and ‘Bird Knows Where You Are’ are the best reflections of this, where along with his vocals and accents, JDS peppers his delivery with poignant and purposeful pauses.

Another aspect that gives Waa wings lies in the guitar work. While always working as the foundation upon which JDS and Marlene Samson sing, JDS's fingerpicking style adds a nuance and flair that elevates these songs. A special note to the engineer, who allows the album to develop a sonic signature within the tasteful reverb that the songs soak in.

A return to form for the Melbourne balladeer; we hope he finds time in his busy schedule to tour it.

– C.J. Lahey

Waa is available to download via Bandcamp, and to stream via Spotify.

Fred Thomas – Changer

Fred Thomas's 2015 album All Are Saved hit me like a bolt out of the blue, and ended up #3 on my list of favourite albums from that year. (I still play standouts 'When They Built The Schools' and 'Bad Blood' on a regular basis.) When I heard that follow-up Changer was on the way, I was predictably excited. Late last year, Polyvinyl previewed the album with four great advance tracks, two of which – 'Voiceover' and 'Mallwalkers' – knocked me sideways. Now Changer has landed, it's enchanted me in a similar way to its predecessor.

Although All Are Saved is Changer's Polyvinyl predecessor, it's worth noting that Thomas also released an album of instrumental electronic sketches in the interim via Bandcamp. Minim comprises 30 one-minute vignettes that point in so many interesting directions, the mind boggles (an early version of Changer's '2008' has a home there, plus Changer's title track is basically Minim's 'A Park For People'). Thomas seems to thrive in the overlapping zone of a Venn diagram that has loose electronic jams as one circle and strummy indie-rock as the other. (Check out his band Hydropark if you like Krautrock-influenced instrumental rock.) And let's not forget Thomas's words, which spill over everything like an upturned cup of coffee.

The words are the first thing you notice on urgent opener 'Misremembered' – it's so crammed full of them you feel like you're walking in on songwriting in progress. "There was something I was trying to say," is repeated over insistent guitars, emphasising his tendency towards open-ended pronouncements; there's the feeling that a Fred Thomas album is just a snapshot of an ongoing flow of music and words that the listener has the privilege of sampling. (Indeed, Changer was originally submitted to Polyvinyl as an hour-long album before being edited down to these 34 minutes.)

Thomas crams a lot of great songs into Changer, interspersed with instrumental stretches that allow the album to breathe amid his tumble of words. 'Reactionary' is an early languid detour; 'August Rats, Young Sociopaths' is an absolute peach. The fact it all ends with 'Mallwalkers' is no coincidence – it's easily one of his finest songs to date, crammed full of hooks and lyrical gems; a culmination of a lot of the best aspects of the album. While not quite as magical as All Are Saved, Changer still comes highly recommended.

[Changer is released today on Polyvinyl.] 

Gersey – What You Kill

For about a year, before Gersey vocalist/bassist Craig Jackson and his wife Camilla left Melbourne for L.A., I was lucky enough to play guitar in their band, The Sirens of Venice. Craig and Milli started writing songs together after Gersey guitarist Matt Davis moved to Paris, where he formed the instrumental band Bombazine Black, and things wound down for Gersey. Or so it seemed. Despite the friction of distance, the band reconvened for What You Kill, their fourth album since forming all the way back in 1997.

Before Craig left for L.A., Gersey (minus Matt) recorded 14 songs in Melbourne over the course of two weeks, with 12 making the final cut. The fact that the bulk of the album was completed quite quickly comes across in the easy, flowing nature of the performances, no doubt a product of the long-standing chemistry within the band. In Gersey’s soundworld, simplicity is a virtue, with chord changes and melodies unfolding naturally, unhurried. There's a sense of melancholic drift tempered by resilience, Craig's lyrics and vocal performances keeping things ambiguous, coloured equally with sadness and happiness. When they hit their straps, they're like the best bits of mid-tempo Mogwai with vocals – which is a very good thing.

  
For me, the highpoints of the album come when the band stretch out across six or seven minutes, such as on 'When You Hollow Out', 'Endlessness', and ‘She Knows’, a swooningly gorgeous waltz. On the more concise end of the songwriting spectrum are 'See Lucienne', and ‘Summer Days’, which evokes that mid-afternoon music festival grogginess, where you realise you’re happy and drunk, but dead on your feet with hours of bands left to watch – you can practically see the sun glinting off Jackson’s sunglasses.

The countless hours spent in rehearsal rooms and on stages across Australia, plus the new-found distance between members, could have resulted in an album that sounds tired and needless. Though the album stretches out across nearly an hour – so perhaps losing a couple of the less engaging cuts may have enlivened the whole – there's little here that doesn't sound vital and woozily ethereal. Like the gruesome monster on the cover, about to sink its teeth into a severed arm, Gersey still sound hungry.

Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool

Five years may be a long time to wait between albums, but for Radiohead to follow up their underrated eighth album The King of Limbs with A Moon Shaped Pool still feels miraculous. After the carefully planned teaser campaign – the flyers sent via snail mail, the whiteout of their social media accounts, the superb videos for advance singles 'Burn the Witch' and 'Daydreaming' – Radiohead's ninth album is deeply beguiling and occasionally overwhelming. 

The first surprise was the alphabetical tracklisting. A lucky accident or reverse engineering? Nothing with this band feels accidental, so I'd guess the latter. The second surprise was the generous running time of 53 minutes. Who the hell releases an album longer than 4o minutes at this time of fast-click attention deficit? Thankfully, A Moon Shaped Pool is more than worthy of focused, album-length listening; indeed, it feels neglectful to begin playing this album unless I can give it my full attention. 

My first impression was how well it works as a whole. The feeling it left me with was similar to my first listen of Portishead's cinematic Dummy – I felt like I'd experienced a profound and painstakingly crafted work of art, undoubtedly beautiful but emotionally heavy. Comparing this album to Radiohead's previous work, what's most immediately apparent is how different it sounds to not only its predecessor, but also their most widely revered releases, OK Computer and Kid A. There's plenty of piano, strings and choral voices, and not much in the way of effected guitars or fretboard histrionics. Even Thom's vocal performances are, on the whole, pretty restrained. Its closest cousin in their discography is probably In Rainbows, my personal favourite.

In terms of structure, the album feels 'circular', echoing the cover art, with the music radiating out from the centre in concentric waves. 'Glass Eyes' is the gorgeous, glistening sphere around which the rest of the album orbits. Among heavily filtered piano and a subtle, aching string arrangement, the lyrics tell a simple tale of arriving at a destination via train only to feel alienated – so the protagonist takes a walk out into nature to regroup.

Either side of the centre are two of the album's most upbeat, electric numbers, both of which were performed live during the band's 2012 tour. 'Ful Stop' reins in some of the hurtling urgency of its live incarnation, especially in the first half, but still manages to seethe and throb with almost sickening malevolence before erupting into a head-nodding krautrock groove. 'Identikit' has evolved notably in the studio since being played live, and wasn't immediately convincing on early listens; the dubby treatments, choir and itchy guitar solo all felt a bit 'remixed'. Thankfully, repeat listens have revealed the song's dynamism and winning melodies. 

Step out from the centre again to find the pretty, open-tuned folk of 'Desert Island Disk' and 'The Numbers' (previously known as 'Silent Spring'), which Thom Yorke debuted in Paris last December. Then, either side of these songs are two of my favourites. 'Decks Dark' is reminiscent of 'Subterranean Homesick Alien', with some fantastic bass playing from Colin Greenwood and splashes of spring reverb on the rhythm guitars. 'Present Tense', which Thom has been playing solo since 2009, is backed by a shuffling samba rhythm and swaddled in eerie tape echo treatments. 

'Daydreaming' is utterly devastating, especially when accompanied by Paul Thomas Anderson's video, which has brought me to tears more than once. While plenty has already been written online about the fact Thom is saying "half my life" at the song's menacing conclusion, I feel it's more likely he's referring to his time within the band than his relationship with the mother of his two children, especially because the song also features the line, "We are just happy to serve you". Penultimate track 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief' has taken the longest to reveal its charms, but is now sinking in nicely.

Finally, at the album's extremities, where Radiohead often position their most startling songs, we have the two oldest cuts. Addictive single 'Burn the Witch', supposedly dating back to the sessions for Kid A, scythes through the upper registers with its col legno string arrangements and soaring chorus. A long-awaited studio version of 'True Love Waits', debuted live back in 1995 (!), closes out the album on an elegiac note, with a similarly waterlogged piano tone to 'Daydreaming'. 

While it's easy to read the personal backstory that will no doubt have coloured the creation of this album – whether Thom's separation or the death of producer Nigel Godrich's father – Radiohead have never been a band to be taken so literally. If anything, some of Thom's lyrics suggest a potential environmental theme, which is also reflected in Stanley Donwood's recently posted artwork, with what looks like an aerial view of a planet flooded, engulfed in flames, swirling with pollution or smothered in vegetation.

Ultimately, like all enduring art, A Moon Shaped Pool is open to interpretation and richly rewards close attention. It's a dark, swirling vortex of glorious songcraft that reflects our hopes, our fears, our vulnerable, aching humanity.

[A Moon Shaped Pool is available digitally now, and on vinyl and CD on 17th June.]

Shearwater – Jet Plane and Oxbow

When I first moved to Melbourne and joined a band, I received some advice I shouldn't have heeded. After our first gig, a friend's wife recommended that I face the crowd more and perform in a way that acknowledged someone was watching. (Admittedly, I was playing in an instrumental band, which can be notoriously boring to watch unless there are visuals.) I tried being more animated for a couple of the gigs that came after, but it felt weird and unnatural, so I gave up and concentrated on playing the music well, hoping this would be enough for anyone watching.

What's this got to do with Shearwater? Well, this new album sounds like Jonathan Meiburg is self-conscious that more people than ever will be listening to his music, all of whom want to be impressed – and few of them will be paying for the privilege. Like its superb predecessor Animal Joy (2012), and the disposable covers album Fellow Travelers (2013) that followed, Jet Plane and Oxbow is released on Sub Pop. The stakes are high. It sounds like Meiburg may have considered that he needs to go big or go home. (He does have a parallel career as an ornithologist, so if Shearwater tanks, he could do that instead?) The promotional emails touting this release implored Shearwater fans to preorder, especially if they want the band to tour Australia. (I live in Australia, I'd love to see the band live, so my preorder dollars were immediately thrown their way.)

As much as I applaud the band's perspicacity, something feels awry. Let's suppose, for a moment, that it's possible to create a mid-tier indie-rock album in the 21st century without paying any attention to what's going on in the music industry, or of hoping to recoup the hours and dollars invested. Let's suppose that this music was created because its creators had a burning desire to do so – that this music needed to be made. Then, let's listen to Jet Plane and Oxbow and wonder how Shearwater got here, to these particular eleven songs. Much like Wild Beasts and Lower Dens – two bands whose recent albums (Present Tense and Escape From Evil, respectively) I also eagerly anticipated – there have been pre-release murmurings of a more '80s-sounding direction for Shearwater. First single 'Quiet Americans' seemed to suggest as much, with its prominent synth lines, strident drum sounds and in-your-face production.

Indeed, in an interview with Michael Azerrad on the Sub Pop website, Jonathan Meiburg makes reference to Bowie's Scary Monsters, Eno and Byrne's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, and Talking Heads' Remain In Light as influences. Great albums all, but their relationship with Jet Plane feels tangential at best. Those albums may have inspired Meiburg to employ synths, rototoms and gated snares, but these instrumental additions feel superficial.

What seems to have changed is Meiburg's confidence in occasionally reaching for a sound that could best be described as 'stadium rock'. When this confidence over-reaches, I can't help but cringe in embarrassment. 'Pale Kings' is the worst culprit, its breakneck banjos falling over themselves to keep up with the fist-pumping pace, the songwriting falling short of Meiburg's ambition. As far as I'm concerned, the song should never have made the final cut, which is especially perplexing when more worthy songs, such as 'Evidence' (the demo of which features on the Headwaters podcast), were abandoned. Later in the album, 'Wildlife in America' is a bland and uninspiring piano ballad, and 'Radio Silence' strives for a motorik momentum that soon wears out its welcome, dragging on for nearly seven minutes.

That said, when Jet Plane hits home, its power is undeniable. 'Backchannels' is stunning, with a guitar break reminiscent of Talk Talk's sublime Laughing Stock. 'Filaments' sounds like a re-work of Radiohead's 'Bangers and Mash', all bass filth and percussive clatter. New single 'Only Child' has elegance and restraint on its side, with a lovely turnaround on the bass. 'Glass Bones' is an anthemic rock song done right, its riff down and dirty enough to cut through my skepticism. And glorious closer 'Stray Light At Clouds Hill' injects some welcome space into the mix, its vocals sent boomeranging through a tape delay.

Listening to the Headwaters podcast, it sounds like Meiburg and his band developed the songs on Jet Plane through jamming. However, little on this album conveys these origins. Somewhere along the way, something has slipped off kilter, taking Shearwater in an unsatisfying direction for such a great band. With a frontman as intelligent and articulate as Jonathan Meiburg, some of the musical decisions here are frustratingly inexplicable. My expectations of this release were high, but like Spoon's latest album They Want Your Soul, what could've been a great album is simply a quite good one.