Audio Antihero Presents 'Unpresidented Jams' (Audio Antihero)

The wonderful Audio Antihero label has developed a reputation for producing one-off compilations that combine variety and quality while striking exactly the right note at the right time.  Few have been more timely than this: a nineteen track collection with all proceeds going to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Immigration Law Center to aid the fight against the odious Trump administration.

The usual Audio Antihero regulars distinguish themselves as usual.  Cloud offer an evocative piano version of 'Moonlit' while Chuck's 'Nothing Matters To Me Now' characteristically combines power and fragility in a way that  seemingly only he can manage.  'Hole' is another dollop of introspective brilliance from Benjamin Shaw, while 'The New Colossus' finds Jack Hayter in fascinatingly experimental mood.

You can hear three of the other tracks in my Dandelion Radio show this month.  'Still Pills' is a woozy indie masterpiece from Still Pills, originally found on their 2014 album Omstart Sessions (which you can get as NYP here) while the always stunning Deerful serve up the typically delightful 'Unlearn/Begin Again'

The third of the tracks comes from the legendary Jeffrey Lewis, whose 'Dictator Seeks Reichstag Fire' is the most blistering and scarily perceptive attack on Trump yet to arise here or anywhere else.

Audio Antihero are offering the compilation for a minimum £2.99 here.  It's a cracking opportunity to get involved while enjoying the perfect soundtrack to the resistance.

Chuck - My Band Is A Computer (Old Money/Audio Antihero)

The perennially wonderful Audio Antihero have introduced a new off-shoot label.  It's called Old Money Records and if what it's going to release is anywhere near as good as this first offering, we're in for a treat.

Old Money's remit is to put out reissues and compilations, with the intention of allowing us to catch up with music from the past that hasn't yet received the attention it deserves.  As someone who constantly self-flagellates due to an inability to give everything that passes through my inbox as much of a hearing as I'd like, this is a pleasing venture in itself.

I don't think anything from Chuck ever did pass through that inbox, which is a shame because I've clearly been missing out on something very special indeed.  Chuck's approach is unmistakeably rooted in that tradition of eastern US songwriters - he's from Massachusetts but now lives in Brooklyn - who have a way of mixing the celebratory and the world-weary in such a way that any dormant paradoxes lying therein are brought kicking and screaming, yet often laughing, into the world.

I detect strains of Jeffrey Lewis and Leonard Cohen but I note neither of those are mentioned as influences in the press release.  Daniel Johnston and

Jonathan Richman are though, and these are just as discernible. Other ears may no doubt find that Chuck is coming from somewhere else entirely, because what he adds to all this is very much his own.  The defiantly bombastic synth-led overture of opener 'Happy New Years Babe' make way for the wistfully introspective 'Oceans' and 'Mary Anne' yet the mesmerising, uplifting musical backdrop, particularly of the latter, continues the defiant mood, which prevails, even as the awkward tiny details of life so brilliantly assemble in Chuck's acute lyrical observations, throughout the collection.

I'm playing 'Pictures' in my Dandelion Radio show this month, another track that marries upbeat instrumentation with reflective lyrics, in this case searching for clues in a personal history that, for Chuck, comes across as somehow both familiar and alien. 

In all, then, a new direction for Audio Antihero, but with a familiar stamp of quality. 'My Band Is A Computer' is available now, as download or limited edition cassette, here. 

Best Albums of 2013: 9. Cloud

9. Comfort Songs - Cloud (Audio Antihero)

The Audio Antihero label probably had its most productive year yet and the crowning achievement (in a close race with the rest of that Jack Hayter series) was this, an album of delicate brilliance that you could line up against Mercury Rev's Deserter Songs and The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin and it'd win without breaking sweat.  

The songs in this collection get soaked up by your consciousness and become part of you: you find them popping into your head at odd times and it takes you a while to remember where you heard them, then you get used to it and you know straight away.  There can be no better antidote to a 'mainstream' music industry more obsessed than ever with the transient and insubstantial.

Deservedly, it got a lot of great reviews including this one from Contact Music: "Comfort Songs holds a strong claim as one of best albums under the ill-defined umbrella of 'indie-rock' that has been released in the last decade or so - 10/10."  

Get it on CD or download here.  

Cloud - Comfort Songs

Does this review even need to be written?  So much has been said already about Cloud's Comfort Songs that it would probably suffice simply to give an overview of reviewers' comments, such as Pitchfork's view of it as 'astoundingly accomplished', Tom Ravenscroft's 'a great record', the 8/10 awarded to it by Drowned in Sound or the 10/10 from Contact Music, all of which simply scratch the surface of the praise heaped on what is unquestionably one of 2013's finest achievements.
 

But to do so would just be lazy and, although I'm quite prone to laziness on occasions, it wouldn't do here and I feel the need, albeit belatedly, to add something myself.  On approaching Comfort Songs, I had the same feeling I got when listening for the first time to The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin.  Not that there are that many stylistic similarities, but these are both releases that hit the listener in places you didn't know were even part of you.  They possess a transcendent appeal.  You're never sure what's going to come along next, are never able with any absolute security to anticipate the next chord change or where the song's structure will take you.  An album that aspires to greatness must have four or five such moments: here, Cloud lays them across all eleven tracks.

I played the single 'Mother Sea' in my August Dandelion Show, a preview that gave us fair notice of what to expect, and yet still it only scratched the surface of this amazing collection, containing only barely a hint, for example, of the whimsical beauty of 'Wish Little Fish' or the epic magnificence of 'Desperation Club'.  At the moment I think 'Authorless Novel' is my favourite track on the album, a meandering, bewitching piece of music that can take you anywhere without you ever feeling you know it completely.   Hear it in my September show on Dandelion Radio.  Audio Antihero, who've already brought us so many great things in the past and during this year, have surpassed even their own high standards with this release.
 

So often it's the case that a new album captivates me for a few weeks or perhaps at best months before I move on to something else, such is the sheer wealth of great music around.  But this is one that I know I'll be going back to again and again for the rest of my life.  When a certain mood strikes me, and where formerly I reached for The Soft Bulletin or Grandaddy's  The Sophtware Slump now I'll be making my first move in the direction of Comfort Songs.

Get it here. 

Free download (but don't stop here): Mother Sea

Audio Antihero - Regal Vs Steamboat Compilation in aid of Rape Crisis

At the end of the year when I put together my list of the best albums of the year, I have a strict 'no compilations' policy.  There's no particular reason for this, except that I have extreme anal retentive tendencies and it pleases me to create systems of rules within which my obsessions can operate.  

Such a rule - which those same tendencies dictate can't be revoked without me feeling extremely uncomfortable - mean that the new Regal Vs Steamboat compilation from Audio Antihero will be denied what will surely be its rightful place as one of the best releases of 2013, unless of course somebody less constrained by psychological idiosyncrasies is willing to give it that recognition.  I hope they will.

Charity releases can, of course, be at best a double-edged sword.  Often they can be an excuse for passing off sub-standard material in the hope that people will be obliged to buy it because the cause is a good 'un.  Audio Antihero, however, already possess a better track record in this area than most.  Their previous compilations have been extremely pleasurable listening experiences and Regal Vs Steamboat, released in support of Rape Crisis, suggests they're getting even better at it.

Here, the usual AA suspects deliver to their accustomed high standard: Jack Hayter showcases a new version of the excellent 'Sweet JD', while Fighting Kites offer a frantic live version of 'Grey Starling', Wartgore Hellsnicker get impressively noisy and Paul Hawkins (above) reaffirms his position as one of our most treasured, and too often sadly underrated, songwriters.  

There are further appearances from legendary associates Darren Hayman and Jeffrey Lewis (right), which I would - in any normal circumstances - surely be hailing as the highlights of the collection.  But these are not normal circumstances: Ace Bushy Striptease, Burnt Palms and Internet Forever produce indie pop of such a sublime quality that it renders my oft-stated pleas for recognition that we live in a new golden age of such stuff barely even necessary.  New additions to the AA roster Cloud would surely incinerate the competition were it not made of such universally strong stuff while Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love are so good they make me put to the back of my mind any reservations about their ridiculous name, which is saying something.

Despite all of this, arguably my greatest pleasure has been in being exposed for the first time to the work of Helena Dukic (left), a London-based, classically trained artist who makes relatively simple music to die for, as is adequately showcased by her track 'Come Along'.  It inspired me to check out more of Helen's work here and it's a firm promise that you'll be hearing more of her in my Dandelion Radio shows in the future.

But limiting my reflections to the artists above gets nowhere near to giving you an idea of the panoramic brilliance of this collection.   To do that, you really need to get a copy.   It's available here for a minimum £3.99.  It's for a good cause, of course, but, even if it wasn't, that would be represent a considerable bargain for what is essentially just about the best sampler release you'll hear for a long time.

Jack Hayter - Sisters of St Anthony (the final chapter)

It's been one of the more remarkable series of releases in recent years.  Audio Antihero, an almost absurdly prolific record label, not only had the solid good sense to put out the recent recordings of Jack Hayter, former multi-instrumental wizard with Hefner, among others, but to put them out in a 12-part series of subscription singles.  It's been like feasting on the most sumptuous banquet, served slowly, knowing that the next instalment is going to be at least as mouthwatering as the last.

Now we've reached the last of the releases and it's going to be like facing the end of a beautiful relationship.  The comedown will be difficult, though easier for knowing that this doesn't mean the end of the road either for Hayter or Audio Antihero.  If this series has proved anything, it's that they both have such great musical sensibilities that there's bound to be plenty more where this came from.  But that didn't really need proving anyway.  So in a way, it's more an au revoir than a goodbye, though the gap between this last meeting for now an the next one will be, for a while, fairly unbearable.

It's hard to pick out highlights from the 24 tracks because there hasn't been a single weak link in this remarkable chain.  'The Shackleton', perhaps, which Audio Antihero also kindly donated to our Into The Light compilation at the end of last year, or 'Farewell Jezebel', which brought Jack back together with old Hefner buddies Darren Hayman and Antony Harding; perhaps 'King of the Shale', which I suppose I loved so much partly because its celebration of the great Ivan Mauger reacquainted me with my childhood speedway memories, the surreal whimsy of 'O Dreamland!', or 'Sisters of St Anthony' itself, which features an excellent vocal contribution from Suzanne Rhatigan and which I've been featuring in my Dandelion Radio show this month.

But there's a case to be made for Jack having left the best till last.  The final single in the series couples the raw folk of 'Quotes' with the evocative spoken word track 'The Lab Technician and the Sexton'.  I've decided to take the unusual step of featuring both 'sides' in my May Dandelion show, which will start streaming from Wednesday.  Great releases demand their own rules, after all, and something great enough to provide such a brilliant finale to this amazing series provides an even better reason for disregarding normal protocols.  

The whole series can be obtained from the Audio Antihero bandcamp site and they're throwing the excellent 'Sucky Tart' EP into the package too. Which is highly fitting for a series that, just when you thought it was as good as it could get, kept pulling out something even more extraordinary.