Tag: ffs

105 Anna Meredith: Varmits

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

‘Varmits’ often threatens to be United Nations certified incredible at times

+9

When 安娜 concentrates on solely producing fantastically abrasive and inexpressibly weird dance music, the results are some of the year’s best electronica

+7

The Merry-Dith manages to present bizarrely home crafted and low budget sounding music that at times strikes me as the greatest- and maybe,even the first- ‘lo-fi’ dance album ever made

+5

‘Varmits’ is at its best a brilliantly odd album, which pulls of the holy grail of all artistic tricks: being at once little unlike anything else out there and yet so rarely unlistenable

+6

Zayn_-_Mind_of_Mine_(Official_Album_Cover)

‘Rarely‘ unlistenable, because unfortunately when Anna Meredith sees fit to base a track around vocals the dreaded knitted shark tea cosy is jumped, and what was once thrillingly different instead threatens to sound horribly twee

-32

It reminded me of the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’, where it was revealed that Leatherface’s half-brother was Postman Pat. It didn’t ruin the film by any means, Michael Cera was perfectly cast and Postman Pat was only in a handful of scenes, but it kinda delegitimised the creepiness of the whole franchise somehow

-33

Postman-Pat-Movie-featured-image2

However, Wor’ Annie still manages to craft superbly layered pop songs from seemingly minute resources, which is worth a good

6 Prince Points

Metacritic: 84

Length 47 minutes -1

Is the last song just the first track but played on Ukulele? No -1

Total 60

Images stolen from:

https://annahmeredith.bandcamp.com/album/varmints

http://isthismoviesuitable.com/2017/04/14/postman-pat-the-movie/

https://www.loveknitting.com/shark-tea-cosy-knitting-pattern-by-teacosyfolk?country=GB

44: FFS: FFS

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

A collaboration between Frank Ferdinand and Sparks (do you see what they did there? Do you? Do you see?) with eyebrows archly raised so high that they spike out of your media player and cause great danger to overflying aeroplanes. There’s even a song called ‘Collaborations Don’t Work‘! Do you see? Do you get it? Do you see? Do you see do you see do you see? Do you fucking SEE?! While the obvious response to such a successful product would be to assume that Sparks have acted as some sort of muse for FF to produce their best album for more than a decade, the truth is this is really more a Sparks album with FF being nice enough to provide backing band duties to give the tracks a little extra oomph (umph? Umff?). But so what? More bands should be willing to throw their weight behind some of their biggest influences to allow the cult concerns one last pay day, especially if the results are as enjoyable as this.

‘Fun’ Fact: When Franz first floated the idea of a joint album via email, the Mael brothers responded by sending back the song ‘Piss Off‘

I’m in the mood to twiddle my moustache while cackling to a song’s devilishly smart double meaning, what do you recommend? Well, the whole album really, but why not start with ‘Call Girl‘?

Album Link