Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

“If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning, I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land” – for those of us of a certain age this song brings back memories of Ed “Stewpot” Stewart’s Junior Choice and Peter, Paul & Mary’s happy-clappy interpretation; the younger generation are probably more familiar with Changing Rooms’ Handy Andy’s novelty version (gulp). In fact, the song was written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays in the late 1940s in support of the emerging post-war progressive movement, which was focused heavily on labour rights – something of a rallying call in austere times. On the title track of hirsute Seattle folkies (©) Fleet Foxes’ new album Robin Pecknold sings “If I had an orchard I'd work till I'm raw; if I had an orchard I'd work till I'm sore - and you would wait tables and soon run the store”. It may not be as rousing but it’s certainly indicative of the mood that informs the band’s sophomore effort: while not overtly “political”, this set is often more focussed on the day-to-day than their previous effort was.

Helplessness Blues (the track) is an excellent centrepiece: opening quietly with acoustic guitar & voice, Pecknold informs us that, although he was taught to believe that he “…was somehow unique - like a snowflake” he would now “rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me”. The sound opens out and the voices start to layer as he continues to set out a manifesto which accepts the need to be part of a meaningful movement while maintaining individuality: “I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you; or bow down and be grateful and say ‘sure, take all that you see’ to the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me”.
The lyrics could, I suppose, be interpreted as rather more precious & egocentric and refer instead to being in a suddenly-successful band with all of the “pressures” that entails, but I’d prefer to think that it’s a commentary on the Western World’s current economic status. The “orchard” refrain at the end seems to reinforce this opinion.

There has also been a slight shift in the band’s musical template for this album; it feels like the second-hand vinyl shops in their locale have run out of the American 1960s folk & psychedelia referenced so enthusiastically on their previous releases, forcing the band to look across the Atlantic and absorb some of the English and Irish folk-rock of the 1970s instead. The Plains/Bitter Dancer resembles a somewhat sinister Morris Dance overlaid with a faintly eastern canon of voices before the second section delivers an almost medieval melody. The Shrine/An Argument is an even more convoluted medley: it opens with a Christy Moore feel and refers brightly to “apples in the summer” before shifting down-tempo to a fairground waltz-time which suddenly sees the world rather more pessimistically (“in the morning, waking up to terrible sunlight”). The mood-swing isn’t complete there, oh no sirree… the pace drops once more to become almost funereal, and then a “freeform jazzy” (?) squawking sax takes centre-stage; it’s certainly experimental, but I have to admit this last section made me think of Pigbag tuning up.

It’s not, by any means, all wild deviation from their established template though. With its swooping air and Beach Boys harmonies, opening track Montezuma is not a million miles away from the Sun Giant EP’s Mykonos (actually it’s 6,896 miles, pedants), Battery Kinzie is all bass drum & hammered piano  - a close cousin to the previous album’s White Winter Hymnal highlight - and Someone You'd Admire is fairly straightforward and wouldn’t sound out of place on the latest R.E.M. album. Sim Sala Bim  - a magician’s incantation à la “abracadabra”- is also firmly in the band’s established mystical hunting ground both lyrically & musically (the outro is a great frenetic guitar riff that brings Crosby, Stills & Nash’s Marrakesh Express to mind).

Lorelai is probably the most personal song on the album. It has a much fuller sound - layers of voices and tambourines over another waltz beat - and while it initially sounds as if we’re in for a bleak few minutes (“So, guess I got old - I was like trash on the sidewalk”) it’s actually plaintive and yearning (“I was old news to you then”). There’s a lovely drop to a minor key for the middle 8 and it closes with footsteps echoing into the distance. A real highlight.

There are moments when I found myself disengaging from the album, it has to be said: the finger-clicking Bedouin Dress has a Gaelic violin-driven feel (and features the album’s first mention of mythical Irish island Innisfree – it crops up in The Shrine/An Argument too) but it does meander a bit; The Cascades is a short guitar-led instrumental, similar to those that Nick Drake occasionally dropped into the middle of his albums… not unpleasant but neither particularly memorable.

Blue-Spotted Tail is all plucked acoustic guitar (again!) with a very simple melody – pleasant but a little slight. Grown Ocean, however, brings proceedings to a close on a rather more exciting up-tempo note.

This is not really for everyone; one of my friends, following an enthusiastic recommendation of their eponymous debut, lambasted me a couple of weeks later for making him "listen to a load of hippy sh**”. There’s probably nothing here likely to change his mind but it is a thoughtful, interesting and melodic collection.

And I’ve made it through a full Fleet Foxes review without once mentioning Grizzly Adams… damn, just blew it!

Helplessness Blues is released in all formats on May 2nd (UK), May 3rd (US).

Radiohead – Supercollider / The Butcher

Nice! An unsolicited email from Radiohead’s W.A.S.T.E. arrived this morning announcing “two tracks for your listening pleasure” which (it seemed at pains to point out) were “not part of a new loyalty points scheme, a Radiohead clubcard or even an air miles redeemable reward type thing... just a big old-fashioned thank you!”.

Supercollider and The Butcher were released on limited edition 12” vinyl (very limited - 2,000 copies only!) to mark Independent Record Store Day on Saturday April 16^th. In keeping with their rather singular approach to disseminating their music the band has opted out of reselling them in any form just yet (even the “pay what you like” approach used for In Rainbows) and instead mailed a completely gratis link to their subscribers – or, at least, those of us who’ve shelled out for the yet-to-be-received “Newspaper Album” version of The King of Limbs (previously reviewed here).

So what do we get? Actually, a couple of really good tracks.

Supercollider opens with a sharp, crisp electronic pulse-beat followed by a canon of swirling synths fading in to lay down the backdrop for a rather lovely melody. The lyrics are typically oblique (and hard to catch, if I’m honest!) but the theme seems to be about dust, particles, pixilations “in a blue light, in a green light, in a half light, in a work light”, building up to what sounds like Thom trying to convince us that he’s upbeat at the end (“I have jettisoned my illusions, I have dislodged my depressions, I put the shadows back into the boxes”) – I, for one, don’t buy it! This is a long (over 7 minutes) workout for a song that doesn’t adhere to a verse/chorus/middle-8 structure but it rides its time well; layer upon layer of instruments are added including (yes!) Jonny’s guitar. It all puts me in mind of the better moments from LDC Soundsytem’s This is Happening.

The Butcher is driven by a heavier marching drum loop and deep deep bass, along with creepy organ, wailing backing vocals and a far gloomier vocal – but it all works really well! Lyrically this is much darker territory – quite visceral horror, really: “Cut out, chop, liver on the block, my heart still pumping” ending with the frankly unnerving refrain “he's a warrior, warrior, he's a little bitch coming out of him”.

The email informed us that “The Butcher was recorded and mixed during The King of Limbs sessions but we couldn't make it work on the album; Supercollider was started during those sessions and finished off in March of this year”. It’s hard to see the logic in the former statement (it is neither wildly different from, nor overly similar to, anything else on the album) but second-guessing Radiohead’s motives is a pointless exercise. Supercollider would definitely have fitted nicely into the album’s overall soundscape and opened up some space in the flow. In this “digital age” though it’s easy to tack them onto the end of the album on one’s mp3 player – and that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Thanks very much guys… now, when do I get my “Newspaper Album” edition of The King of Limbs? 

Supercollider & The Butcher are available for download from W.A.S.T.E. by email invitation, or you could try buying a vinyl copy on eBay if you've got £100+ to spare. Alternatively I'm sure they will be available in other purchasable forms soon.

Source Code (director: Duncan Jones)

Zowie Bowie, Rolan Bolan… oh how we laughed at the short-lived penchant of early 70s Glam Rock Stars to come up with silly rhyming names for their offspring. The erstwhile Zowie is all grown-up now and going under the rather more conventional moniker of “Duncan Jones” (co-opting his father’s birth surname). Jones is a rising star of a director, having given us the excellent intelligent SF movie Moon in 2009 and now following it up with this intriguing further entry in the same genre – admittedly more of thriller in nature this time though.

Source Code certainly hits the ground running: US military pilot Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes to find himself on board a rush-hour commuter train. Sitting opposite him is a girl called Christina (Michelle Monaghan) who is chatting in a matter-of-fact manner about her life (“I took your advice…”) suggesting that they are good friends. Colter has no idea who she is and proceeds to inform her so; she is confused by this and insists that he’s a school-teacher named Sean Fentman. A trip to the lavatory, discovery of ID confirming this in his wallet and a glimpse in the mirror showing Fentman’s face only adds to his confusion. Then a huge explosion rips through the train, completely obliterating it, and Colter suddenly finds himself alone, strapped into a small dark capsule.

This is a stunning opening and the movie continues apace as the basic set-up of the plot is revealed right up-front (so the following is not really a spoiler): Stevens is part of a military programme which seems to be called "Beleaguered Castle". This project involves use of an experimental process known as “Source Code”, based upon the concept that the brain of the recently deceased can be accessed soon after death and that the human mind has a near-perfect recall facility of 8 minutes; this means that those last 8 minutes can be “relived” in perpetuity by a proxy test subject. Colter is a “perfect match” for the aforementioned Sean Fentman, who was, indeed, a teacher on a train into Chicago which was destroyed by a terrorist bomb that morning. The unknown bomber is also in possession of a dirty bomb which he/she intends to detonate in Chicago later that day – so Stevens is required to relive Fentman’s final 8 minutes on the train repeatedly in an attempt to identify the terrorist.

Having started with a Quantum Leap moment re the lavatory mirror we now move into, most obviously, Groundhog Day territory; however, the fact that this film references (intentionally, I’m sure) so many others should not detract from the fact that it is quite original in its plotting and execution. Colter’s link, via video screen, to the outside world is through Captain Carol Goodwin (Vera Farmiga – excellent in Up in the air and just as convincing in a completely different type of role here). The development of this remote relationship, without ever wandering into any kind of romantic territory, is certainly reminiscent of A Matter of Life & Death.

As Stevens repeats and repeats his journey, considering, eliminating, reconsidering suspects at each stage, his relationship with Christina (remember – based upon basically the same repeated 8 minute sequence) grows without us ever learning anything more about her than we really knew at the outset. Gyllenhaal and Monaghan manage to make this work convincingly – indeed, the acting is consistently good throughout… and I haven’t even mentioned yet the slightly creepy turn by Jeffrey Wright as Rutledge – the programme director (inventor?) of Source Code: Dr Strangelove and Dr House combined!

It’s hard to write anything more about the plot without giving away the subtle twists during its relatively short (just over 90 minutes) running time; indeed, there’s an excellent homage to yet another famous 80s SF movie that I won’t reveal as it would divulge a particularly clever and moving moment… but I’m sure any fans of this field of film will recognise it when it happens. There's also a lovely bit of supporting casting which references one of the sources that I have already mentioned above.

To me, the basic philosophy as the movie unfolds goes something like:
Is this really only a replay of an historical event? If so, how can Colter/Fentman alter the sequence of events? If the events are altered, especially to the point of altering the outcome of many or all of the parties involved, what does this mean? Could this affect the “real world”? What is the “real world”?

If you start to think about the hokey science and/or the effects of any of the above questions then the intrinsic logic of the overall concept may start to unravel (and I admit the ending didn’t work for me completely at first); however, if you go with the flow, accept the anomalies and empathise with the believable Stevens then this is a great ride and (I suspect) one of those films that will stand up to repeated viewing.

I love the work of the late Philip K. Dick and, to me, it’s high praise that this movie feels like one of his musings on “the human condition” and ranks alongside the better efforts at translating his prose to screen: Blade Runner, Minority Report… even Total Recall (regardless of Arnie!). If you want a good blockbuster with a bit of thinking involved then this is well worth a look.

Source Code is on general release in cinemas now.