ladytron

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JKL and sounds for summer: Jezabels, Kidneythieves and Ladytron

The stereo is cranked up for summer, and here’s three bands firmly ensconced on the stacker (in alphabetical order!):

The Jezabels

One of the things I like about the Jezabels is that I can tell it’s them when I hear them. Their identity is in the drumming — man, Nick Kaloper works hard! — and the unmistakable vocals of Hayley Mary, the ebb and flow structure of their tunes that makes the most of her range. The Aussie band landed their debut album, Prisoner, this year, after wowing with three EPs and a considerable reputation for live performance. It’ll be interesting to see where they go with their next album, but for now, I’m enjoying the here and now, in particular the album’s strong openers ‘Prisoner’ and ‘Endless Summer’, those bars of sultry summer guitar that pop up all over this smooth road trip of an album with its sign posts harking back to the ’80s.

Kidneythieves

The video for ‘Taxicab Messiah’ inspired a bit of a binge on this US duo’s music, and the albums sampled so far — 2004’s Trickstereprocess, Trypt0fanatic from 2010 and the most recent, this year’s EP The Invisible Plan (free track available for download) — are remarkably consistent.

Probably the hot fave at the moment is Trickstereprocess, a revamped issue of the band’s 1998 album, Trickster, with a few bonus tracks. It opens with the aforementioned attention grabber and unfolds like the best of sonic rollercoasters, melding trip hop, rock and synths on a solid foundation of compelling bass grooves. At the fore is the rather fetching vocal style of Free Dominguez, hitting buttons ranging from Portishead’s Beth Gibbons to Collide’s kaRIN to Berlin’s Terri Nunn. (Speaking of Berlin: a new album is in the works — wunderbar!) The album exhibits plenty of light and shade: thumping drums on ‘Pretty’, for instance, standing out from the favoured fuzz guitar attack — there’s a rock ‘n’ roll heartbeat under the synths, for sure.

Slinkier, but no less intense, is Trypt0fanatic, with an array of strong tunes: the grab bag of ‘Beg’, the full speed ‘Size of Always’, the sexiness of ‘Lick You Clean’ and catchy ‘Dead Girl Walking’ are highlights.

The Invisible Plan ups the electro quotient yet further, heading into sultry terrain.

Any of these Kidneythieves outings would provide an ideal soundtrack for building up a party sweat under Chrissy lights.

Ladytron

UK-based Ladytron released their fifth studio album, Gravity the Seducer, this year, following up from a greatest hits collection. It’s so very smooth, gliding along with synthesisers and twin vocal melodies from lead voice box Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo (whose accented delivery adds flavour when she steps up front). The album doesn’t have such immediately fetching tunes as previous singles ‘Destroy Everything You Touch’ (Witching Hour) or ‘Runaway’ (Velocifero), but there are some beautiful arrangements: on ‘White Gold’ and ‘Altitude Blues’, for instance, and the comparatively up-tempo instrumental ‘Ritual’ (one of three on the album); ‘Ambulances’ has a cinematic quality, a tinge of dread absent elsewhere. A suitable album with its steady, almost carousel, rhythms for setting the mood to ‘chill out’.

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Good news: Louise Cusack, Zola Jesus — come on down!

Found out last night that all-round nice person Louise Cusack will have her fantasy series given new e-life by Momentum, Pan Mac’s new e-pub arm. w00t!

And in further good news, Zola Jesus has a new album out. Only heard the single, Vessel, so far, but it’s a corker. Meanwhile, the moratorium on buying new music means Ladytron and the Jezabels are also in the holding pattern. Jury’s still out on the new Evanescence album before it gets queued…

And I owe Jay Kristoff a beer for the late-night ROFL his blog about Twitter gave me. (Speaking of blogging, that writer’s crutch or blessing or curse, check out this post from Patrick O’Duffy.) I don’t go on Twitter much, because I’m desktop-bound and I find Twitter to be the equivalent of white noise when FB (The Twitter Mix) is already frustrating the fuck out of me, but I found it curious that the past two times I’ve logged in, it’s to discover what Peter Ball is eating in Rockhampton, a town I once — twice, actually — lived in, both times for just long enough. The old place just hasn’t been the same since Cactus Jack’s closed down. Oops. I forgot this was the good news update. So, Cactus Jack’s is still serving those awesome chicken tenders in Cairns, or at least they were a year ago.

Do keep an eye out for Lou’s Shadow Through Time, you e-reader types. She totally deserves it!

And remember: writing fixes everything.

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Catching up with Real Life, Ladytron and Sarah McLachlan

In preparation for a quiet run to the end of the year, I’ve been stockpiling albums — some are yet to arrive, including a hot-of-the-press album by I:Scintilla (gotta love that high dollar!) — but a few have lobbed and I’ve had a chance to wrap my ears around them.

In fact, the wonderful Ladytron albums Velocifero and Witching Hour supplied a delightful soundtrack to a cyberpunk short story I was working up — just the right combination of synths, guitars and wicked vocals to do the trick!

And I finally got around to tracking down Sarah McLachlan’s best-selling album Surfacing, featuring the stunning Building a Mystery. She was a charming performer when I saw her a bunch of years ago — she’s touring again with a Taste of Lilith Fair concert.

And now I’ve cracked the seal on another breakout album, Real Life’s Heart Land, and oh the memories evoked by Send Me An Angel! I’m sure that was on a mix-tape (remember them?) I put together on an after-school visit to my mate’s to soak up his vinyl collection on ’80s hot hits. There’s no mistaking David Sterry’s voice — it’s heartening they’re still out there, doing the job — as the album unfolds, such a strong outing it pains me that it’s taken this long for me to grab the CD.

Good company, this lot; I can’t wait for the rest to arrive to so we can get the party started.