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PLAYLIST (FEBRUARY 2005)

This playlist does not claim to do anything more than hope to introduce people who enjoy Piano Magic to music the band themselves enjoy. The writing may be a little basic but that's because we're a band, not music journalists. And we only review record we like because what's the point of being nasty about something just because you can be? We aim to be encouraging. If you know of a record you think we should hear, please let us know and if you work for a record label, please send us your records. Otherwise. Piano Magic generally purchases records from www.smallfish.co.uk and www.roughtrade.com

Little Songs About Raindrops - Lullatone (Plop/Inpartmaint Inc)

All the best music is made at home and this is no exception. Shawn James Seymour and friends create naive, playful, minimal songs for wet Wednesday afternoons. Glockenspiels ping, ukuleles twang, accordions wheeze, music boxes unwind in a gleeful tribute to the pitter-patter outside. This is non-electronic, electronic music that may not change your life but will pick you up onto your tiptoes.
The Konki Duet or Textile Ranch will find a kindred spirit at work here.
Information : www.lullatone.com
Contact : nao@inpartmaint.com

Quiet City - Pan-American (Kranky)

Mark Nelson's world is one of somnolence, fragility, deliberation. Beneath microscopic insectile crackles and pops, time slides by, glacier pace. A spare scattering of drums, guitar, bass and horns hack away at icy synth foundations, pulsating black key drones. Occasionally, white noise bursts through ˆ the melancholy ghost of dead tv, untuned wireless static. The music is as strongly evocative as weather or smell in inducing a wispy nostalgia for days, people, places filed away by time.
Quiet City also includes a DVD of promo clips for each album track and, sorry to say, I could've done without it. For me, this is the kind of music where you provide your own pictures ˆ that is, whatever the music suggests to you spools around in your mind's own cinema. Nelson and Annie Feldmeier's short movies just didn't compare with my mind's eye. They have a bland, obvious, college project vibe to them ˆ night drives through an urban sprawl, a mind-numbing exploration of a dead parking lot, polar bears swimming in captivity. Of course, I didn't have to watch the DVD and in truth, I flicked through it as fast as I could once I got the general idea but I couldn't help but think some lovingly shot concert footage ˆ anything with some humanity - wouldn't have gone amiss spliced in with all the ambient-concrËte.
That said, I am certainly Nelson's target audio audience. I take long walks at night without a flicker of concern for my own safety. I daydream about what animals think far too much. I lay in bed for two hours each morning after I've opened my eyes, staring at the ceiling. I want to be a nightwatchman. Join me.
Information : www.quietcity.info / www.kranky.com

The Milk-Eyed Mender - Joanna Newsom (Drag City)

Given the royal leg up by Bonnie Prince Billy, Joanna Newsom, blown up to 600dpi, seems to be in every magazine I pick up these days. Ten years ago, she, Devendra Banhart and Coco Rosie (with whom she shares a certain curio sensibility as well as a friendship) would've been best kept secrets. So, what's to distinguish Newsom from your average outsider artist find?
True, she is more than an accomplished harpist and has a rather guitarish (as opposed to classical) way with the instrument, which is refreshing. But her voice is firmly on the side of an acquired taste. Like her aforementioned compatriots, she twists and contorts the words in her mouth before letting them out. She gleefully twangs. This is not Pop Idol. When her voice is delivered with gusto, it can sound almost brattish, attacking. Other times, I found it wonderful.
Newsom's songs themselves, seem to come from a time and a land long forgotten, sunk like treasure. There's a fairy tale, tapestry texture to them and, like most great lyrics, can be enjoyed without the music.
As with Devendra Banhart, I found myself coming back to this album and each time, discovering something I hadn't heard before. It's a record that sinks in drop by drop.
The stuttering harpsichord-powered,"Peach, Plum, Pear," particularly, is fantastic.
Contact : Drag City, PO Box 476867, Chicago, IL 60647

Tiger, My Friend - Psapp (Arable)

Any group that employs a squeaky toy as a percussive instrument, has to be applauded. Psapp are of the "kitchen sink" school of electro-acoustics ˆ that is, throw everything in and see if you can pick a melody out of it. One Matt Wasser is even credited with playing a beer can on the title track. I look forward to his solo album.
Shuffling bossanova rhythms, plucked strings, Moog squiggles and a breezy female vocal hint at a passing admiration for Stereolab perhaps but Psapp has a wonderfully playful way with their instrumentation that's closer to Tipsy or Stock, Hausen and Walkman. "Velvet Pony," in particular, with it's school bells, slamming doors, Casio, milk bottles and match strike rhythms manages to form a lovely, naive song from sonic junk. Occasionally, I found the vocal melodies a little saccharine but that's a minor quibble against a record so full of inventiveness.
Information : www.arable.net

Outside Closer - Hood (Domino)

Few bands have improved so quickly from record to record as Hood. Where once was an indie also-ran, sinking in it's own lo-fi mire, now stands a strong, innovative, emotive unique group. No doubt encouraged by their signing to one of the greater British record labels of the moment ˆ no less it's impressive roster ˆ Hood have blossomed in a way few would have thought possible 4 years ago. Their last album, 2002's "Cold House," is one of the few Cds I have worn to death.
Their titles, their art, their music would have you believe that Hood live in a desolate, rural, English wilderness, perpetually Winter. The Super 8mm still photography on their record sleeves smacks of nostalgia for the dusks of their childhood, Winters in which the snow actually settled. Even before you put this record on, you are firmly in position, transported back, fixed in amber.
And yet, Outside Colder is not quite as cold as Cold House. It's a sharp wind as opposed to a fog. This evolution owes much to the obvious newfound confidence of the band. The vocals have been pushed that tiny bit forward. Where once the beats were a little too concerned with being clever, they now, helpfully, punctuate the rhythm. Strings, piano and brass flourish amongst the guitars and drums. And though the lyrics may scan as trench-coat defeatism, they aren't delivered too painfully. I wonder if Hood have lightened up? The Negatives' and The Lost You' are bordering on pop.' At least, the kind of pop Disco Inferno began to turn out just before their demise in 1994.
Information : www.hoodmusic.net

Sesamsamen - F.S.Blumm & Friends (Plop/Inpartmaint Inc)

As with Lullatone and Psapp, this is a record that's trying out some new toys in order to explore some new ground. Marbles, mini-golf, toy piano, clarinet, computer, harmonium are all listed in the instrument inventory and all splendidly fleck the quite pretty guitar and keyboard work.
The simple, though effective, idea behind this release was that FS Blumm gave a basic guitar piece to a group of creative friends and asked them to interpret it in their own way, though never wandering far from the core idea. The results, though varied, are nicely fenced off by the general concept and some neat additional production work by Blumm and Semuin.
The overall effect is one of an intimate, improvisational project that approaches sound like stickle bricks ˆ seeing which will fit together, even if the end product is a little askew. Only the very Greg Davis-like "Coop.Comp v.6" changes the suit to a much more melancholic guitar drone and well, that's probably down to Greg Davis playing on it.
Information : http://fsblumm.free.fr
Contact : plop@inpartmaint.com

The Dead Texan - The Dead Texan (Kranky)

Another CD + DVD package on Kranky but one which puts labelmates Pan-American to shame when it comes to visualisation. Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Christina Vantzos have completely resisted the most obvious temptation of wrapping up their slow, introspective music in slow, introspective imagery. Instead, they've opted for some blossomy, bright, playful artwork and animation that adds another dimension to their audio fare. As with Pan-American, you don't need to watch the visuals but at least here, they're graceful and inspired, as opposed to unsubtle, morbid.
Musically, The Dead Texan, like several of their labelmates, pull a large block of ice over a very long distance. On an entirely beatless record, keyboards are given much space (or at least, a gigantic Hall Reverb) and all else ˆ breathy vocals, guitar, trumpet ˆ is a mere peppering. Notes aren't so much as played as unfolded. Time becomes wonderfully irrelevant. Playfully paradoxical, The Dead Texan likes to tease with titles like The 6 Million Dollar Sandwich,'"Glen's Goo,' and Girth Rides A (Horse)+' even though their music is like finger-turned projector film of old friends you'll never see again, playing the piano at 3am, drunk on bad whiskey.
Contact : deadtexan@mailcity.com
Information : www.brainwashed.com / www.kranky.net

Kraftwerk 2 - Kraftwerk (Germanofon)

Kraftwerk, of course, weren't always robots. This 1971 album is undoubtedly the work of humans, evidenced by a spirit of improvisation they would never have allowed themselves some years later. And although Klingklang' possesses one of the first ever recordings of a drum-machine, most of the music here is organic, "human." Organ, guitar, bass, harmonica, glockenspiel, flute are stretched over the opening track's 17 minute canvas. Tape is repeatedly sped up and slowed back down. Atem' is simply the miked up sound of someone breathing heavily, unnervingly in a gas mask. Strom,' Spule 4' and Wellenlange' are closer to Lee Renaldo than anything Kraftwerk would become ˆ ostensibly, surgery on guitar. This is Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider, schooled by Stockhausen, bending the rulebook as far as it will go before they crystallized into their full robotic glory.

Salt Marie Celeste - Nurse With Wound (United Dairies)

Salt Marie Celeste is the bleaker, slower, black tar cousin of Piano Magic's "A Trick Of The Sea," though the waves here are a grim, imposing force that not so much as break onto the shore, as mercilessly devour it whole. These undulating drones are best listened to in the dark on headphones, as they perfectly induce emotions you would rarely visit through choice. Occasionally, a sinister death rattle, lamenting ship's horn or creak of a ghostly deck cut through the fog but you are in no doubt that not a soul breathes life here. It's a record bereft of heart and one that defies you not to crack under it's oppressive icy weight.
Information : www.durtro.com or contact info@durtro.com

Avec Laudenum/The Tired Sounds Of - Stars Of The Lid (Kranky)

Music for anyone who's sat smoking at their kitchen table in the middle of the night wondering where it all went wrong, how little time there is left, why didn't she love me, what's the fucking point, I'll kill that bastard the next time I see him, why didn't I tell my dad I loved him, will it snow?
As graceful, wonderful as dust falling in the grey sunlight you can only see on Ecstacy (and perhaps laudenum?) Eno-esque drones slide through the cogs of a real tape delay, punctuated ever so slightly by submarinal echoes. Not remotely techno.
Information : www.brainwashed.com/sol or www.kranky.net

The "Pretty Little Lightning Paw EP" - Thee Silver Mountain Reveries (Constellation)

How to distinguish A Silver Mt.Zion from Thee Silver Mountain Reveries or The Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra for that matter, I'm not entirely sure. They all appear to be silvery projects of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Efrim but that's where my brain runs out. . There's an almost ecclesiastic glow to this music, which, though not entirely fathomable, is strangely wonderful.
More Action! Less Tears' contorts drums, violin, guitars and organ into a peel of churchbells and then things get weirder. Microphones In The Trees' is the sound of God burning down a church with pure sunshine. The group know the power of the cathedral reverb twinned with the minor chord and through that equation, hearts are broken. Moments of this record made me want to levitate.
Contact : mail@cstrecords.com