Another Form of Relief

Okay, so that project is basically a video designed to hype Middleton’s new solo record Waxing Gibbons. Which means the title may have been some kind of bait and switch. Sorry about that.

Now I’m not exactly sure what this is supposed to be. It’s not serious enough to be a proper documentary. But it’s more than your usual puff-piece EPK fodder too. Middleton talks openly about his career and the kind of music he writes, while others (including Moffat and King Creosote) pipe in with various observations. Some are supportive (“His voice absolutely sums up pish weather”), others not so much (“Aidan’s got a solo career while Malcolm is just nosediving.”). It’s all good fun, and certainly a hell of a lot more entertaining than most of these advert pieces usually turn out.

The album itself is solid, but nothing really different from what one would expect Middleton. Maybe it really is time to try making that heavy metal album.

Waxing Gibbons is out now on Full Time Hobby.

Malcolm Middleton continues his “girl band cover project” with a cover of Ladyhawke’s My Delirium. Now, unlike the last one he did, I am at least vaguely familiar with this particular song. Not through every really hearing it, but via a friend who on occasion will repeatedly sing the same little bit of the chorus. While changing it to “delerium”.

There is probably no way I can honestly write about this thing without coming across as a snob like last time, so I’m not going to attempt to compare the versions. Nor should I try and figure out why I quite like this when what I’ve heard of the original has me wanting to destroy my eardrums. Standing on it’s own though, this slots in as a fairly typical Middleton effort, coming across as a stripped down plea for his own sanity. Which is probably a reasonable course of action when you spend your days covering songs like this.

I’m always wary of posting covers where I’m entirely unfamiliar with the original version. Given I couldn’t identify one Girls Aloud song from any other, or that of any other girl “band” for that matter, I was going to give it a miss. I always enjoy new Malcolm Middleton material though, even if I tend to end up having a love-hate relationship with many of his songs.

What threw me about Call The Shots is that if I didn’t know it was cover, I probably wouldn’t think it was. I even had to go to Youtube to make sure there really was an original version, and although I could stomach no more than thirty seconds of it, it did establish that this was indeed a Girls Aloud song. All of which entirely undermines my hatred of mainstream pop. Now, the production is certainly different, but the underlying song remains the same. Yet I enjoy this and can’t stand the original.

Maybe Middleton is just suited to this kind of song (previous covers of The Saturdays and Madonna suggest this could be true), but it’s still a bit weird. How does stripping a pop song down to it’s most basic level, leaving only a vocal and an acoustic guitar, suddenly give it value? Ultimately it probably doesn’t, and it’s likely I’m just being elitist about this things.

Given the difference, it’s likely that fans of the original will probably dislike this, although I doubt very many of them are reading this anyway. If you do happen to know both versions, which one holds up better of the two?

Malcolm Middleton is not a happy man. His songs are usually bathed in misery. On the occasions where he sings about love, it’s usually the fucked up kind. Swear words are littered in as they would be in regular conversation. Bitter comments are par for the course.

A New Heart is an attempt to do none of those things. It’s supposed to be a song “without a swear word or a slight”, something to pass down to his family. He gamely plays along, and each time the song approaches a “dick” or a “shit”, he breaks off mid-line and changes subject completely. It’s one hell of a ride with only one appropriate conclusion: he admits he’s “lost the race to lose” and embraces failure. It’s always said that you should write what you know.

I’ve been listening to some new material by Malcolm Middleton this evening, which made me remember just how awesome he is. Dare I say that I actually enjoy a lot of his solo work more than Arab Strap? I really like Arab Strap and all, but some of the songs there are a little too dirge like for my tastes. Middleton on the other hand manages to bring a catchy melody to his vicious self-loathing.

I recently found this acoustic set from French radio station Planet Claire. Those guys couldn’t build a website to save their lives, but they know how to get some fantastic guests in their studio it would seem. This set was recorded in June 2005, so there’s no new material here, with all five songs being taken from ‘Into The Woods’, the album he’d just released at the time.

I really like just how stripped down these songs sound, as it helps them quite a bit. I love ‘Into The Woods’, but it does feel a little overproduced at times. Reducing these songs to just Middleton and his guitar returns the songs to the more appropriate feel of a miserable man singing his heart out in private. And no one does misery like Middleton.

MP3 Malcolm Middleton – Break My Heart (acoustic) (expired)
MP3 Malcolm Middleton – Devastation (acoustic) (expired)
MP3 Malcolm Middleton – Autumn (acoustic) (expired)
MP3 Malcolm Middleton – Monday Night Nothing (acoustic) (expired)
MP3 Malcolm Middleton – A New Heart (acoustic) (expired)

Malcolm Middleton’s new album, ‘A Brighter Beat’, will be released on February 27 by Full Time Hobby. You can currently listen to two songs from it on his Myspace page.

Malcolm Middleton: Myspace

Note for long domain fans: Another Form of Relief is now accessible via http://www.anotherformofrelief.com. Exciting, no?

It occurs to me that during the writing of this blog, I never really get to write about the songs I really like. This isn’t a slight against the songs I do write about as there is a lot of great material there, but I never get to write about my favourites. This is mostly down to the fact I’m largely writing about new bands or new material from established ones and the such. As such, this post is my small attempt to rectify this issue, by writing about some songs I just really, really like. Whether this will be a regular or recurring type thing, I don’t know.

MP3 Weezer – Falling For You (expired) (Pinkerton, 1996)
Weezer were one of the first bands that I seemed to get obsessively into, and it was this album that did it. While I liked ‘The Blue Album’ an awful lot, it was ‘Pinkerton’ that really grabbed me. So much so that I don’t think they have come even close to it with any of their material since. It’s hard for me to pick a particular favourite from the album, but ‘Falling For You’ would be right up there. It’s one of the more messy Weezer songs, all screaching guitars and distortion while Rivers sings about falling for a girl who he thinks is far too good for him. It also features wonderful little comments (“Holy sweet goddamn” / “little ol’ three-chord me”), giving it a far more real feel than most songs of it’s nature.

MP3 Ozma – Natalie Portman (expired) (Rock And Roll Part Three, 2001)
It wasn’t a particularly deliberate decision when picking the songs, but this one actually covers much the same ground as ‘Falling For You’. This is something made all the more fitting given how similar early Ozma and ‘Pinkerton’ era Weezer are. ‘Rock And Roll Part Three’ could easily be passed off as a third Weezer album with very little to challenge that notion. Anyway, ‘Natalie Portman’ is about wanting someone you can’t have (in this case, Natalie Portman) and not being able to do a thing about it. It’s slower and more introspective than most Ozma songs, and all the better for it. Let’s hope that the newly reformed Ozma can get back to the goodness of this first album.

MP3 R.E.M. – Find The River (expired) (Automatic For The People, 1992)
I don’t tend to think of myself as much of an R.E.M. fan, despite owning all but one (‘Reckoning’..) of their albums. I think this is mostly down to my general disappointment in everything they have put out since 1996’s ‘New Adventures In HiFi’, which I feel was their finest work. ‘Find The River’ though is just about my favourite R.E.M. song of them all, nearly four minutes of utter perfection. The abstract lyrics are here. Michael Stipe’s restrained vocals are here. Fantastic use of piano is here. I don’t know of any album closer that betters this song.

MP3 Malcolm Middleton – A New Heart (expired) (Into The Woods, 2005)
I’m relatively new to Malcolm Middleton, only discovering him earlier this year. His album, ‘Into The Woods’ is one of the best discoveries that I’ve made this year, being a wonderful essay in despair. ‘A New Heart’ is about the most upbeat song on the album, a thundering piece where Middleton spits out his words with such urgency through the three minutes. It has a wonderful unfinished air to it all, with some lines never reaching their end before he bursts into the next.

MP3 Rilo Kiley – Pictures Of Success (expired) (Take-Offs & Landings, 2001)
Oh how I like Rilo Kiley. I discovered them when XFM playlisted ‘The Execution Of All Things’ for all of a week back in 2003 and I’ve been a fan ever since. One of the most fun parts about discovering an already established band is that you get to explore the older material to find new treats. This is the case with ‘Pictures Of Success’, one of their finest songs, from ‘Take-Offs & Landings’, which I didn’t get hold of until a year later. A nice little downbeat song about getting used to the adult world (“I’m not scared, but I’d like some extra free time / I’m not scared, but the bills keep changing color”) with a wonderful use of trumpet, something that we don’t hear anywhere near enough of on pop songs.

Well that’s about it for now folks. Tonight I might be going to see some local folk bands which could be an interesting experience. Who says Kent doesn’t have a music scene? Back tomorrow with a report on the horrors of that. Or not if we just end up in the pub instead.

I’ve been pretty busy over the past few days with various things, which explains the lighter blogging schedule. As such, this isn’t a “proper” post, more a collection of random odds and ends that I want to babble about but don’t really require a whole post.

So Clor announced that they are splitting up today. This news was greeted with the kind of media storm that is helpfully illustrated to your right. Ok, so that may be a little harsh, but it does seem as if no one really cares about this. I’m not exactly cut up about it, but I think it’s something of a shame. The first album was fairly fun and I was looking forward to what they would be coming up with in the future. Included here is ‘Love + Pain’, probably the funkiest song of 2005.

MP3 Clor – Love + Pain (expired)

I really need to find some new bands that I can jump on the bandwagon of. I’m really not getting much out of the current batch doing the blog rounds. I don’t like Tapes n Tapes much. I don’t like Band of Horses at all. I’ve never been one for Sufjan. Cold War Kids leave me, well, cold. Bishop Allen are ok, but what’s the big deal? Same thing for Feist. I find Beirut rather bland. I don’t get the Lily Allen thing at all. And what the hell is so good about Gnarls Barkley? I guess these things go in cycles, but it feels like six months ago I was falling over myself finding new bands, now I’m not finding much that grabs me at all.

There’s a good chance I’ll be seeing the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in a couple of weeks, which has the potential to be very cool. They play a mean Nirvana.

MP3 Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Smells Like Teen Spirit (live) (expired)

When I wrote about Malcolm Middleton I mentioned an irrational hatred for Arab Strap. I’d never really listened to their music for some reason knew that I hated them. Anyways, I finally got past that stupid attitude, listened to a few albums and feel really bad about all that. They really are quite awesome. I seem to have only scratched the surface of their material too. Here’s the song that has grabbed my attention the most over the past few weeks, with it’s wonderful upbeat depressing style. I adore that delivery too. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a band that has embraced their accents and dialects to such an extent that Arab Strap have.

MP3 Arab Strap – The Shy Retirer (expired)

Think that’s about it for now. I’ll hopefully be back to more normal updates tomorrow. I think I might throw in a post like this every now and then though, it’s kind of handy for the little things. Be sure to check back over the weekend when I’ll have an interview with the most excellent Devin Davis.

Arab Strap is a band that I’ve always had an irrational hatred for. This is nothing to do with their music, which if I’m perfectly honest about, I don’t think I’ve ever heard. Much like Belle & Sebastian though, something made me decide that I didn’t like them and that feeling has lingered. I’m trying to rectify this now though, and will be listening to some Arab Strap as soon as one of their albums arrives. The reason for this change of heart is the guy pictured above, Malcolm Middleton.

Malcolm Middleton is one half of Arab Strap. From what I can tell, he’s the one who doesn’t sing, but obviously this doesn’t mean a great deal to me. I downloaded his single, ‘A Happy Medium’, without actually knowing of his connection of Arab Strap, which is a good thing as that would have probably put me off. Thankfully though, I got to hear it in all of it’s shambolic glory. Music that’s all over the place, back and forth male-female vocals, and such cheerful lyrics (“woke up again today / realised I hate myself / my face is a disease”).

This encouraged me to seek out the rest of the album it came from, last year’s ‘Into The Woods’, which has quickly become a favourite. The depressing tone remains throughout, and even the happy songs have Middleton worrying that if he isn’t depressed, he won’t be able to write songs and that his career will be over. I’m sure this is all slightly tongue in cheek, but he sings with enough conviction that it doesn’t really matter.

MP3 Malcolm Middleton – Break My Heart (expired)
MP3 Malcolm Middleton – Loneliness Shines (expired)
MP3 Malcolm Middleton – Monday Night Nothing (expired)

These three songs are my favourites from ‘Into The Woods’, with ‘Break My Heart’ capturing the tone of the album perfectly. Middleton likes to write depressing songs, but seeing as he doesn’t have a great deal to be miserable about, he’s left with quite a dilemma. “You’re gonna break my heart I know it / but if you don’t / you’re going to ruin my run of unhappiness and destroy my career” he sings in a way that should come across half mockingly, but instead makes you feel quite sorry for the guy. ‘Loneliness Shines’ finds him singing about how he feels that even though he’s ‘got it all’ he ‘appreciates nothing’. I spoke about ‘Monday Night Nothing’ in my last entry, so I’ll spare you it again here. Suffice to say, it’s all cheerful stuff.

We’re all about the lame gimmick post heres at Another Form of Relief. Or, if I’m entirely honest, we’re all about the lazy posts that write themselves. This kind of random post breaks up the constant pimping of new artists a little though, so they work well enough for me.

As you can see, we have a bunch of songs that aren’t connected in any way other than them all having monday in the title. I’m half kicking around the idea of doing one of these for each day of this week, but it could prove a little tricky as there aren’t a lot of songs that relate to the midweek days. Note to new artists: Take that song you’re writing about saturday nights and convert it to thursdays! Someone needs to balance these things out a little.

MP3 Pulp – Monday Morning (expired) (from Different Class, 1995)
Ok, hands up, who can name a single Pulp song that isn’t called Common People or Disco 2000? Nope, didn’t think so. It’s kind of a shame really. I’ve never been a big fan of Pulp, and I myself was guilty for a long time of completely ignoring anything they did other than those two songs. That was until last year when I picked up ‘Different Class’ on the cheap and discovered it was actually a very good, consistant album. ‘Monday Morning’ is one of my favourites from the album, a tale of an aimless life spent solely living for the short term excitement of the weekend.

MP3 Wilco – Monday (expired) (from Being There, 1996)
One of the most flat out rock ‘n’ roll songs to come from Wilco, so it’s fitting that it’s all about rock ‘n’ roll and the lifestyle of a band. There’s a certain timeless feel to this song, in that you could tell me that it came from the 60s, 70s or whatever and I probably wouldn’t really question it. In another act of indie blasphemy, I really don’t like the kind of music that Wilco puts out these days, but I really like this. I couldn’t really tell you why though, other than a nice and vague “it rocks” type answer.

MP3 Tegan And Sara – Monday Monday Monday (expired) (from If It Was You, 2002)
Ah, the joy of a fucked up relationship song. This song has absolutely no relation to monday other than the fact the chorus is simply the word “monday” sung twelve times over. No matter though, it’s a great song, going through the shitty part toward the end of a relationship (“Your house or mine / I don’t really care about it anymore / I close my eyes /I make myself unhappy so you’ll go”) in an alarmingly catchy way.

MP3 Ryan Adams – Monday Night (expired) (from Down To The Promised Land: 5 Years of Bloodshot Records compilation, 2000)
As Ryan Adams songs go, this is one of the more simplistic, but it’s still pretty good. The lyrics aren’t anything to write home about, but I like the blending of both acoustic and electric guitars.

MP3 Malcolm Middleton – Monday Night Nothing (expired) (from Into The Woods, 2005)
Malcolm Middleton (of Arab Strap) is someone I plan to write about in more detail in the future, but for now, we have this wonderful song for his latest album. Middleton writes incredibly depressing songs. Which leaves him with quite a dilemma on this album as apparently he’s quite happy at the moment. As he sings on this song, “Well it’s only a matter of time before I feel like shit again / I’m a happy army marching to defeat”. Cheerful stuff, no? He delivers all of this in a flat Scottish accent, although given the nature of the songs, this detachment works very much in his favour. It’s not too gloomy though, Middleton is another who writes depressing songs with music that sounds far too catchy for it’s lyrics.

I’ve really enjoyed putting this post together actually, so I might see how running this over the course of the week goes. It’s probably going to crash and burn around, oh, I don’t know, tuesday, but we’ll see how it goes. I have a few ideas for songs I can use, so it shouldn’t be a complete disaster.

Like mp3 blogs? Like music videos? It seems Derek from Good Weather For Air Strikes has come up with something in the “how the hell did no one think of this sooner?” line of thinking.. a music video blog. Each video featured is available to download rather than just streaming, and certainly looks like an interesting project. Head on over to Videoteque and check it out.