Choir of Echoes - Peggy Sue

Track list:

1. (Come Back Around)
2. Esme
3. Substitute
4. Figure Of Eight
5. Always Going
6. Just The Night
7. How Heavy The Quiet That Grew Between Your Mouth And Mine
8. Electric Light
9. Longest Day Of The Year Blues
10. Idle
11. And Always Is
12. Two Shots
13. The Errors of Your Ways

Running time: 46 minutes
Released: 2014

Well, that one song title throws off the alignment of the cover image. 

Is it bad that despite this being a relatively recent album (i.e. within the last few years) I can't recall a thing about why I might have it? I suspect Peggy Sue benefited from the purchase on the back of being similar to another group - I want to say Allo Darlin' for reasons of hunch - but it may be that I just went all in on the random here.

The parentheses around the opening track title hint that this is a proto-piece rather than a true opening track. It is vocal, only. I guess they are trying to create the titular choir, there are some echoing sounds in there but... it falls a little flat. the sounds were alright but it doesn't go anywhere. A minute and a half is too short for pissing about repeating yourself to be impactful.

The first proper song has a twangy guitar part and a nice, if not brilliant female vocal. I like the languid tone, the easy familiarity of the music and the slow pace of the lines. Pleasantly it breaks out of that pattern, too. No part of the track really stands out and overall the track is just nice, not stand out, but I find myself appreciating it... before realising I forgot to switch off shuffle and am listening to Always Going and not Esme. Correcting that, once it closes, I go back to the start. More twang, and I am now getting the impression it could have been Lanterns on the Lake that brought me here - there are similarities in the vocal, and in the overall tone of the songs, if not the particulars of the musical construction. I am again, predictably, overdue this post - and to fit it in now I am having to find flimsy justifications for not doing other things, outdoor things. It's the first weekend in April, it's a nice day. I should be gardening but I am not. I should be spring cleaning, but I am not. I should be buying my nephew's birthday present... that can fit in after this assuming I remember.

A darker tone on Substitute. Very poppily so, false angst, staged almost. The edgy thrum of their guitar riff watered down from a more "serious" act or genre. I have defaulted far too much to videogames or YouTube vids for my quiet time of late, contributing to the paucity of posts. I found my keenness to keep on going wavering - not consciously, but more by the simple realisation I wasn't listening. Not throwing in the towel, more like forgetting where I was and what I was doing.In the background, whilst I agonise on this, a very bland number is playing itself out. I'll need to skip forward soon, and hope that it picks up a bit. Peggy Sue have energy and enthusiasm, that's clear. Often that is enough to produce something characterful, but that doesn't happen without effort or fault.

Oh, I like the opening sounds of Just the Night. I find myself tiring of the singer though, that languid approach, originally a draw is now a blandness, flat, a flaw. The traces of accent in her voice make my brain shut down trying to fetch the reference for who I think she sounds like, meanwhile I continue to rather like the musical crucible created for her in this track even as the vocal disappoints. The next opening hits a reference for me: First Aid Kit. No question the Swedish sisters are better though. Here we also have two meshed female voices, also have fairly simple arrangements, but it lacks the charm. The ridiculously long title creates an interest, the song fails to deliver on or justify.

I find my opinion bouncing back and forth like a squash ball - at speed, careering into walls, deforming and rebounding. There is a nice bright light touch to a lot of the playing, a tendency to create nice simple musical spaces, looping riffs, variations, overtones. These are really effective, catchy or relaxing, urgent or bright - they have a knack to changing up their theme between tracks. None of the songs really run too far with that though - they don't mash these tones together, which might take this from a pleasant album to a pretty darn good one, but leave each song to stand as an example of the tones chosen. Musically I think it works most of the time. It's the vocals that keep batting me back, pushing me away. There's a boredom in there, like she's not even trying (I'm sure she is), but I get nothing stronger than disaffected teenager, pressganged into stepping in. The flatness is an affectation, almost certainly deliberate, but it really hasn't worked for me on any track other than Always Going. Seeing a puzzle that you've solved again holds nothing like the interest of the same puzzle seen for the first time; so it feels with this vocalist.

I get the impression that this music is better consumed in shuffle form. The energy and pep in their playing could inject a change up and sense of purpose into a random selection, and as a one-off the bored teenager effect either wouldn't grate so much or (more likely) wouldn't be noticeable at all.

There are still two and a half tracks to go, but I am not sure if I have anything novel to add. I keep coming back in my thoughts to the contrast between the peppy sounds and the flatness of the overall effect. It feels disappointing, I guess - in the way that only something that offers you glimpses of goodness can. If it was flat-out bad, it's easy to draw a line under it and move on. Not delivering on promise is worse for that.  Whilst also being better - because at least there is some promise - seeing something could be so much better leaves an "if only..." hanging in the air.

I think perhaps this music would benefit less attention - a funny thing to say, perhaps, but if I were doing something else whilst listening to it, I suspect my ear would be drawn more to their creatively shaped spaces and patterns and not the lyrical content. I cut a couple of tracks, the most egregious examples of the vocal taking over and flattening everything out, and keep the rest in the hope of a more positive impression in other circumstances. It doesn't feel like an unfounded hope - there are so many nice little touches scattered through it that under another light, another form of inquiry, they can shine like the nuggets they are. The soil jut needs to be kicked and scuffed away a little first.

Beings - Lanterns on the Lake

Track list:

1. Of Dust & Matter
2. I'll Stall Them
3. Faultlines
4. The Crawl
5. Send Me Home
6. Through The Cellar Door
7. Beings
8. Stepping Down
9. Stuck For An Outline
10. Inkblot

Running time: 41 minutes
Released: 2015

New music time... released only this week even. Beings would have already been covered by the alphabetical ordering of this project so this listen is quite literally my first. I picked up Gracious Tide Take Me Home after a very wet Latitude in 2012, loved it and thus when I saw Lanterns on the Lake had new music coming out I simply bought sound unheard. Silly, perhaps, but I'm comfortable enough to permit such folly - after all that cuts to the heart of the reasoning behind this blog: I have too much that I don't appreciate!

First listens are rarely a fair appreciation of everything a record has to offer, but first impressions are generally amongst the most interesting. We shall see.

It opens with monitor-like beeping and a muted strumming over a straining squeal of a sound - long drawn out notes - backing up a very distinctive vocal. As the song goes the strumming is replaced, or augmented with keys, doing the same job of breaking up the backing in a similar manner. I rather like the atmosphere but the music doesn't give me anything concrete to latch on to that would allow me to say that it is a great start.

I'll Stall Them has a more rounded sound, more immediately identifiable with the group's prior work. Warm swirls of overlapping themes circle the lyric. There is a bit more life, more volume perhaps, than some earlier songs - its definitely from the same roots but feels a little less insular as a result. An openness in the melodies, the strings especially, speaks to a big picture rather than a closed shop. Today is all about recovery after a busy week. I have a lot to do this weekend but taking time out for things like this is important to making me feel human again and stop me thinking about how crappy the world is given events in Paris last night. Faultlines carries a sorrow, but it does it with a cadence and pace that makes it anything but wallowing. Richness of sound, lines laid atop each other to build a depth, a cushioning feel. My left index finger is hurting at the top joint when I type, this is an irritant and I hope it is temporary as I have targeted getting up to date on Actual Play write-ups this weekend in addition to a couple of listens. Thus far I am enjoying this, though.

A very different type of melody - thick and again shared between guitar and keys is the opening of The Crawl. Gone are the textured layers here to start, though they begin to build up again their use is more sparse than on previous tunes, with the bulk of the structure carried by the drums, which have a nice rumble in their pattern, and the one clear melody. These two elements mesh really nicely, taking my ear away from the vocal, which feels odd. Lanterns on the Lake always appealed because of the nesting of their song inside the webs the music created but here the vocal is less appealing, fading. Now we have two shorter songs, the first a simple piano melody that builds up an aura of other bits and pieces rather than sharing focus around. The vocal is in places so soft as to be barely audible. The second piece is a brighter sound clear and clean notes as opposed to the previous use of sustain, at least in the opening. I prefer the second track, though it appears to lose its sense of self about two thirds through and devolve into mediocre guitar wailing, rather ruining the appreciation of the early segment.

The title track is longer again - 6 and a half minutes. This feels very much in the vein of their prior output, much of which is labeled shoegaze in a staggeringly negative genre-typing, as if introspection is something to be avoided. Too much of it can cause problems, of course - but so, too, can too little. This is a slow piece and reminds me as much of post rock (a staggeringly pretentious genre-typing), early This Will Destroy You in particular. I like the melodies, but the vocal degrades to ill-advised edginess in places, a style that really does not suit our singer's voice.

There is a real feeling of detachment about the opening of Stepping Down. This feels like something off another album, darker, distant, emptier. The vocal is the focal point when it is in play, and that provides the continuity from the tracks before, but soundscape-wise this is much bleaker, lonely and cold. Uncaring. Its well crafted and I rather like the track but it feels a little out of place. I am immediately drawn back in by the construction of Stuck for an Outline though. Nice engaging guitars, which my ear clings to amid the swell of the vocal and strengthening percussion of the climactic moments. Oddly I am left with the feeling that the vocals let this album down a little, which is a surprise to me. I think I will need to listen again in other circumstances where my own words are not my mind's primary stream of consciousness in order to get a fairer appraisal. I definitely need to listen to this again soonish in order to let the tracks bed in. It's bound to be better when it is more familiar.

The record comes to a close with a pointless little meander, an instrumental which really offers very little at first glance. As I close this post in turn, I am left feeling good about the purchase in general despite a couple of apparent flaws and foibles.