After a few very busy release weeks things have slowed down in Indie Basement, briefly, and I’ve only got five records to tell you about today: A Certain Ratio team with Wet Leg producer Dan Carey for their 13th album; Kid Congo Powers’ Pink Monkey Birds return for their first album in eight years; Suede‘s Brett Anderson, Portishead‘s Adrian Utley, Gwenno and more collaborate on Death Songbook; plus Parisian band Dog Park, and Montreal psych trio Population II.
It’s a much busier week in Notable Releases as Andrew listens to 12 records, including Cloud Nothings, Menomena, Ekko Astral, and more. Neither Andrew nor I review The Tortured Poets Department…sorry Taylor!
Tax Day is behind us, Record Store Day is this weekend, and there goes my refund! If you’re going out to your local shop on Saturday, we’ve got recommendations for things to look out for with our RSD24 issue of the BrooklynVegan digital magazine. Even if you don’t own a turntable, there are lots of things that are of interest to Indie Basement readers, including new interviews with Gruff Rhys, Jay from Sloan, and Ducks Ltd , plus features on Blur, Talking Heads, and more. It’s free and painless to subscribe.
If you’re feeling behind on this year, we published our lists of Great Records from 1st Quarter 2024 and Indie Basement: Best Albums of 2024 So Far.
Head below for this week’s reviews…
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: A Certain Ratio – It All Comes Down to This (Mute)
Wet Leg producer Dan Carey help these Manchester legends return to their roots for their 13th album
A Certain Ratio have spent the last decade or so doing a lot of collaborations, but their 13th album has the Manchester / Factory Records greats going back to basics, with Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson stripping things down to the bone with help from producer Dan Carey (Wet Leg, Fontaines DC). “It’s the Ratio removing the safety net,” Kerr says. “Every element of everything we’ve done on this album has been a change.” Johnson adds, “It wasn’t a matter of rubbing everyone else out, it was, ‘let’s find the thing that makes us work.’ And we know that’s just the three of us being as basic as possible – no frills, no major overdubs. Just visceral and happening in the moment.”
It worked. ACR Loco and 1982, the band’s two previous records, are terrific but very much studio creations. It All Comes Down to This sounds like a band playing live, armed with a great batch of well-crafted songs. They haven’t done anything anywhere close to this since the ’80s Factory Records days, but they also aren’t just copying “Knife Slits Water” and “Shack Up,” either. You can feel 40 years of indie and dance running through these songs that are distinctly modern while distinctly ACR. There are indiepop earworms (“God Knows,” “Where you Coming From,” the wonderful title track) and dub-funk headtrips (“Estate Kings,” “Surfer Ticker,” “Bitten by a Lizard”) alongside a couple classic-style post-punk disco bangers (“Out from Under,” “Keep it Real”) that would’ve gone over well at the Hacienda in 1983. Carey’s production is smart and snappy and Kerr’s mellow gravel suits the vibe. It all comes down to this: teaching old dogs new tricks is debatable, but perfecting old tricks in new ways is better.
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Dog Park – Festina Lente (GÉOGRAPHIE)
Parisian quartet make sunny dreampop with a melancholic streak on their excellent debut album
Erica (American), Isabella (Brazilian), Sarah (French) and Jean (French) met at a concert in Paris in between lockdowns in 2021, hit it off and ended up forming a band, Dog Park. I wonder what show they saw? Some sort of jangly indiepop combo surely, as their debut album is a breezy delight that mixes a number of overlapping influences. Dog Park have got a light touch and a fondness for winsome, jazzy melodies which reminds me a little of fellow young Parisians En Attendant Ana, except instead of a strong krautrock undercurrent there is a love of hazy, melty dreampop that would’ve fit right in on Captured Tracks in 2009. (Early C/T seems to be a touchstone for a lot of new groups lately.) Songs like “Sunny Decadence,” “Stimulation” and “Goldfish” exude that happy-sad feel that is the key to superior indiepop, and their breathy vocals and warbly keyboards add lift. It all makes Festina Lente a perfect spring record for those who don’t mind a few April showers.
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Paraorchestra – Death Songbook (BMG)
Suede’s Brett Anderson, Portishead’s Adrian Utley, Gwenno and more contribute to this album featuring sweeping covers of songs about “loss and sadness and regret”
Back in 2021, when everyone seemed to have more time on their hands, Charles Hazlewood, founder of the Paraorchestra and UK cable network Sky Arts’ Ambassador for Music, had the idea to perform a set of “morbidly beautiful and poignantly sombre songs” for a TV special called Death Songbook. (These are ideas no US cable exec has ever had, let alone pursued.) Hazlewood pitched it to his friend Brett Anderson of Suede who agreed to join in. “I loved the idea of curating a suite of songs about loss and sadness and regret,” Anderson said. “I’ve always found happy songs depressing, it’s been the murkier themes that have somehow sounded more joyous to me. Songs about doubt and fear and grief confront feelings we all struggle with, so to know that we are not alone in that fight can be quietly life-affirming.” They went about both assembling a set of songs to perform and a group of singers and musicians to help bring them to morbid life, including Portishead’s Adrian Utley, Sons of Kemet’s Seb Rochford, Nadine Shah, Gwenno, and more. The songs included a number of Suede songs (“He is Dead, “The Next Life”) plus classics by Echo & The Bunnymen (“The Killing Moon”), Depeche Mode (“Enjoy the Silence”), Japan (“Nightporter”), Skeeter Davis (“The End Of The World”), Jacques Brel (“My Death”) and more. Three years later it’s out as an album, with a few studio recordings to supplement the songs performed live for the TV special. Their covers are, in Hazlewood’s words, “very delicate re-imaginings” which means they don’t stray too far from the originals. But they also don’t mess them up, and Anderson, Shah and Gwenno sing the hell out of these with gorgeous orchestral backing.
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Kid Congo Powers’ Pink Monkey Birds – That Delicious Vice (In the Red)
The first album in eight years from Kid Congo’s solo band sports a new trio lineup and collaborations with Alice Bag
Kid Congo Powers is best known for his stints in Gun Club, The Cramps and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, but he’s been making his own dark-hued brand of garage rock for nearly two decades with his solo band The Pink Monkey Birds. That Delicious Vice, the first Pink Monkey Birds album in eight years, sports a new trio lineup of the band featuring multi-instrumentalist Mark Cisneros (ex-The Make Up) alongside longtime drummer Ron Miller. Opening with instrumental “East is East,” there’s an international feel across the whole album that sits somewhere between Ennio Morricone and Serge Gainsbourg, with a lot of headroom in the reverby production. “I’m not sure if living in the desert is making me want more space in music or not,” says Kid who calls Tucson home these days. “Maybe I’m turning into a desert stoner rocker. But I’m not a stoner, so that’s not happening.” Miller’s drumming makes That Delicious Vice pop, but it’s Cisneros who provides much of the atmosphere. Kid Congo, of course, has personality to spare, but he also makes room for The Bags’ Alice Bag who is a creative foil on much of the album, most notably on rambunctious duet “Wicked World.” The album ends with the 17-minute “Murder of Sunrise” that sounds like a prelude to a pistols at dawn shoot-out, but was apparently inspired by Barry White. Kid Congo makes it all work. “There’s all kinds of ridiculous, but heartfelt influences on the album,” Kid says. “Well, I don’t think they’re ridiculous influences, but they are unexpected sometimes, even to me.”
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Population II – Serpent Échelle (Northern Transmissions)
Montreal pysch trio and OSEES tourmates’ new EP makes a perfect introduction to their weird, wild world
Montreal trio Population II have been regular tourmates of OSEES over the last few years and you can hear why. They share a love of freaky psych born of wild guitars, turn-on-a-dime time signature and tempo shifts, heavy prog, drone, metal, punk, improvisation, and arty folk. Their new Serpent Échelle EP makes a perfect introduction to what Population II do, featuring four songs that get weird and exit the planet without ever leaving the listener behind.
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