Album of the Month: THE GIRL IS CRYING IN HER LATTE by Sparks

I do believe that Sparks have released better albums than this over the last 20 years - but I do not think I have been this intrigued by their music since Lil Beethoven. Objectively speaking, The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte does not have the highs of, say, Hippopotamus. But equally, I do not think there is a single song on the LP that does not have a magic trick woven into it. The title song, for instance, may not distinguish itself all that much initially. However, when that majestic synth-line soars into space out of nowhere halfway through the song, the experience becomes unique. 

And it is a unique album, even if it may be hard to put your finger on what it is that makes it so unique. But... is there another band that has remained this different, and this relevant, more than 50 years into their career?..

I believe the sound of The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte is that of good old art rock with various seemingly disparate elements thrown into it (including frightening things like glitch pop). But, filtered through the Mael brothers' taste and personality, it all works wonderfully. "Veronica Lake" rides on intense, faux-robotic minimalism like they own that sound (and they do). "Escalator" should fall apart under its uneventful electronic beat but ends up being strangely hypnotic instead. "You Were Meant For Me" starts like ugly electronic hell but has so much going on (including another one of those brilliant synth-lines from Ron Mael) that it soon becomes infectious. The relentless "Take Me For A Ride" is a hard-rock monster pulsating under some of the album's most beautiful orchestration that does bring to mind the sheer genius of Lil Beethoven. 

I could go on. I could tell you that I find the dramatic atmosphere of "It's Sunny Today" mesmerising in a way that only The Cars' "Drive" could pull off a million years ago. I could tell you that "Nothing Is As Good As They Say", while a little too clean and straight-faced for this album, is absolutely unimpeachable lyrically (sung as it is from the perspective of a new-born getting frustrated with the prospect of, well, life). That "Gee, That Was Fun", while a fitting end to this brilliantly intriguing album, could become unbearable if this was to be their last statement.

But in the end all that matters is the ideas. They seep through everything, pile on top of each other and stun you again and again. The album is overflowing with ideas - and that, in the end, might be exactly what makes Sparks so unique. So different, so timeless, so endlessly relevant. 

Rating: ★★★★½

May Round-Up

While Graham Nash's songwriting has never been as great as his ego, the man did write a number of classic pop songs in his time ("King Midas In Reverse", "Military Madness", "Cathedral"). His new album, Now (★★★), is a humble little collection of singer-songwriter pop rock that is moderately catchy, pleasant and safe. The standout is the heavily orchestrated ballad titled "I Watched It All Come Down" which manages to be both subtle and absolutely majestic. 

Another notable songwriter from the 60s, Paul Simon, has released a religious 33-minute folk-opus named Seven Psalms (★★★) this month. While that may not sound like a mouth-watering proposition, it is actually a surprisingly intriguing experience that may lack catharsis but does have plenty of taste. There is, however, a certain subversive folk rock catharsis in the music of Band Of Holy Joy. Their new album, Fated Beautiful Mistakes (★★★½), is not quite More Tales From The City, but in between intricate arrangements and pleasantly unsettling vocals - there is so much beauty and style.

Staying with folk music for a while, Kevin Morby's More Photographs (★★★½) is a welcome continuation of his excellent LP from last year. In addition to the new versions of three of that album's best songs ("This Is A Photograph", "Bittersweet, TN", "Five Easy Pieces"), More Photographs features a few more stylish highlights including the quietly intense and cathartic mini-epic "Triumph". 

Pere Ubu's new album Trouble On Big Beat Street (★★★★) should crumble and fall apart, but that never really happens. As a matter of fact, it all works - despite the dissonance and the sheer experimentation. Take the very first song, the very unwelcoming "Love Is Like Gravity": if you do not like it, you do not stand a chance with this band. Circus noises ("Nyah Nyah Nyah"), piercing guitars that could be described as either grating or ringing (maybe both), David Thomas's idiosyncratic vocals (if ever there was a man worthy of that adjective)... This is so wrong, and yet so oddly well-written. Pere Ubu's best album in decades. Oh and just to disturb the listener even more: "Crazy Horses" almost sounds like a straight-up rock song. 

As I have already said earlier this month, one of my albums of May was Johnny Tchekhova's Bleu Collapse (★★★★) which sounded a bit like if 80s Cocteau Twins were actually French and slightly more approachable. Speaking of approachable, I had not been pinning too much hope on Silver Haze (★★★½) by Jim Jarmusch's band called SQÜRL. But it was somewhat of a revelation. The noise is colourful and the drones are eventful - this is real music that has something to say, and there are moments of Godspeed You!-styled beauty and intensity. I could listen to the story of "The End Of The World" for days. 

Finally, there has been lots of praise for The Lemon Twigs's new album Everything Harmony (★★★). And it is a lovely pastiche of 60s/70s power pop and made me think of bands like Todd Rundgren's Nazz whose music suffered from a desperate lack of charisma. Not much identity here, either, but the harmonies are rather lovely (especially on "Every Day Is The Worst Day Of My Life"). 

Songs of the Month:

Grian Chatten - "Fairlies"

Blur - "The Narcissist"

Sparks - "It's Sunny Today"

Johnny Tchekhova - "Ceci n'est pas une chanson française"

Kevin Morby - "Triumph"

Graham Nash - "I Watched It All Come Down"

The Lemon Twigs - "Every Day Is The Worst Day Of My Life"

Martin Amis (1949-2023)

My heroes were very much his heroes. Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens. Except that he, too, was my hero.

I believe that we all have a writer who writes specifically for us. A writer whose every line we have to read, and internalise, and interpret. A writer whose every line we selfishly believe that only we can truly internalise, and interpret. For me, such writer was Martin Amis. 

While I had no idea that he had cancer (incidentally, it was the same cancer that Christopher Hitchens had), I approached his last book, Inside Story (2020), with a certain trepidation. It was, all things considered, a very strange novel. A little all over the place and a little unfocused, Inside Story felt like a final statement. It was semi-autobiographical, and not unlike something Konstantin Paustovsky once did, but it had the disturbing sense of life and fiction getting into each other's way. 'Why was it written?' was a question posed by many critics who reviewed Inside Story. Critics who may have forgotten that you never, ever, ask such a thing. That these four words are at worst poisonous and at best completely meaningless. Because once you get rid of this silly old question, you find all the wit and all the heart which you have always seen in his books. 

Martin Amis was (oh how wrong this 'was' feels) like an intimate friend. A literary lover, if you will. There are lines that got burned into me ("You always write for someone. Mother. Friend. Shakespeare. God".), and there are circumstances I will never forget. I remember how I was reading London Fields (for me, his greatest work) at five in the morning, inside a car in Brompton, following a rainy festival night. Or the dry summer day when the sun was killing me in a scorched park in late August as I was reading the grossly underappreciated The Pregnant Widow. Or, indeed the old yellow armchair in an apartment in Warsaw that saw me trudge along, quizzically, through the complex world of Inside Story. No, I do not profess that I loved his every book (Yellow Dog was, I believe, an artistic failure), but even his minor works (like the short story collection Heavy Water, or one of those slim early novels like Other People) were brutally witty, and incisive, and deliciously well-written. 

Obviously and somewhat inevitably, I was thinking of him on the day that he died - without me even considering for a second that he could die, or fall ill, or be 73 (after all, he was always the younger Amis). First, I was thinking of him because the new film based on his Auschwitz-set novel The Zone Of Interest was lauded at this year's Cannes. And this, one has to understand, after decades of cinematic flops and failures by directors who could never really perceive that Amis's books were essentially unfilmable. Second, earlier that day I was talking to someone about Martin Amis being a great, and rare, example of an artist escaping the shadow of a hugely successful parent.

And then he died, months after his friend Salman Rushdie had survived a brutal attack in New York. It was, of course, a literary life well lived. Amis himself had recently said in an interview that at the age of 25 he would never have believed that he would accomplish so much. But he did. He wrote close to three dozen books of fiction and non-fiction, and he had long become a much better writer than his father. Unwittingly, he also gave some of the best literary advice I have ever received. The best being perhaps "Never write a sentence that absolutely anyone can write". Someone has once asked me about the meaning of this particular advice as it appeared bizarre and not entirely meaningful. After all, how could one ever only write unique sentences? However, that was missing the point entirely. The point being that while writing, you always have to keep them in mind, those words: "Never write a sentence that absolutely anyone can write". If you do that, you will never once write a generic sentence. 

Last autumn, in Amsterdam, I went into an old bookshop to get a few books. However, the shop was closing and I only had ten minutes to browse, to make an agonisingly difficult choice, and to pay to an old man who pretended to have read every single book that he was selling. I was in full panic mode as I grabbed Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10½ Chapters from a cluttered shelf and headed for the counter. On my way, however, I caught a glimpse of The Rub of Time, Amis's last work of non-fiction collecting his essays and articles from 1986 to 2016. It was a fortunate moment, a moment of incidental miracle, and I felt positively ecstatic as I left the bookshop and walked down the busy street of German tourists and Dutch cyclists. 

Today, when I come to terms with the death of Martin Amis, I find it hard to experience anything resembling that feeling. There is, nevertheless, something precious ahead of me, something that contains a tingle of that literary ecstasy. And that is me reading The Rub of Time in the coming days. Because I have not done it yet, and those pages hold the biggest promise.  

My Cultural Highlights: BLEU COLLAPSE by Johnny Tchekhova

In a way, there is nothing as wrong as reviewing a work by someone you know. First of all, you will not like it. Secondly, you will be insincere and say many things you do not actually believe. And yet here I am, writing about the latest LP by Johnny Tchekhova (an odd sounding moniker of the French musician Grégory Peltier whom I have the pleasure to know personally). My single excuse, and you have to agree it is a rather good one, is that I actually love this album.

Grégory Peltier used to be in a Strasbourg-based band called A Second of June who played the sort of post-punk music that veered from shoegaze to dream-pop to synth-pop with relative ease. Later, Grégory released the patchy but entertaining Loubok in 2019 (as Johnny Tchekhova), and now, four years later, there is the new album titled Bleu Collapse (official release is tomorrow). Only this time, Johnny Tchekhova is actually a full band with other members contributing both musically and instrumentally. But getting back to the main question of whether Bleu Collapse is actually any good... well, I heard the record back in March, and I still remember how the initial sense of trepidation went away fifteen seconds into "Eaux rouges". 

To me, this is Grégory's most focused album yet. The same elements that have defined his music up until this moment (synth-pop, shoegaze, dream pop) are still in place, only this time nothing sticks out and the experience is pleasingly homogenous. After the smooth, dreamy opener, we get to the first true highlight which is the vaguely menacing "Nos vies d'ailleurs" that sounds not unlike Cocteau Twins in their supreme 80s form. The effective "Dépossession" (distinguished by a stellar guitar break at the end) is followed by the slightly Eastern-tinged bass riff of "Toxycontine" that swirls and dances before transitioning to the frankly masterful chorus.

So far so good. Then, after a laid-back dream-pop instrumental, we bump into the undisputed high point of the album, the intense and intensely catchy "Ceci n'est pas une chanson française" where, quite simply, everything works. The softly pounding drums, the timeless vocal melodies, the seemingly inconspicuous synths. The vocal hook at the end of the 'Les sentiers battus mille fois...' line is inspired, and overall it is hard for me to imagine someone hearing this song and not being caught up in all its infectiousness. I am also partial to the two long-winding but quietly eventful songs that finish the album - the title song in particular has a beautiful build-up and one the LP's strongest choruses.

What distinguishes Johnny Tchekhova from many bands doing this kind of dreamy post-punk is that the songs actually feel eventful and substantial. They grow and develop. They evolve. And Bleu Collapse may well be Grégory Peltier's best work to date. The album is a focused, concerted effort that leaves the taste of a sweet explosion. I would say the sound of the album mirrors the colour of the album's cover. Only it is a deeper and a much more intense blue. The collapse is glorious, too, and stays with you long after the album stops playing. 

Three films. Beasts, Close, One Fine Morning.

These three films from 2022 are united by the French language. In The Beasts, it is a language that exists alongside Galician and Spanish. In Close, it is occasionally interrupted by Dutch. In One Fine Morning, it is pretty much the only thing that you hear. I am not going to say that French is what makes these films great - but I am not avert to that idea, either. These is some of the best cinema of 2022. 

The Beasts (2022)

God what a chilling, nerve-wrecking experience this film is. The Beasts is what you would call a countryside thriller. A middle-aged French couple moves to a village in Galicia to grow and sell eco-friendly vegetables. They used to live in France (Antoine is a former teacher) but they are now seeking to be close to nature and to lead a simpler life. If that sounds idyllic, wait till you start watching this film. The Beasts thrives on tension.

The problem is that the local people are not exactly happy to see the intruders. Two brothers in particular take active dislike to Antoine due to the fact that the latter blocked the deal involving the sale of land to a wind farm (the deal would prove lucrative to the few village inhabitants). Things turn from tense to downright ugly with inevitability and in disgusting slow-motion. There is vague abuse, there are direct insults. There are scenes in the local bar where the atmosphere could be sliced with a knife. At some point, Antoine and his wife discover that their tomato harvest has been spoiled. From that point on, Antoine takes a camera and starts shooting the abuse he is getting from the brothers and showing the videos to local police who remain passive and largely disinterested.

The tension just builds and builds until you can barely take it anymore. And yet, oddly, you cannot look away. The film is harrowing, hypnotic, and utterly compelling. The fact that it is loosely based on real events is frankly disconcerting.

Close (2022)

If Quiet Girl was my favourite coming-of-age film of 2022 (if not, in fact, my favourite film of 2022), then Close takes the second place. When it comes to portraying teenage friendship and pressures of growing up, the film gets so many things right that I felt a personal connection. Even the details; when the boys are playacting an attack from an imaginary army of brutal enemies, it takes me back a million years.

The two boys are Léo and Rémi, and they are friends. Close, intimate friends. They playact, they run through gorgeous flower fields in rural Belgium, they daydream and they even sleep together in the same bed. However, a moment comes (and it is usually but a moment) when things begin to change. A girl at school asks them a question: are you together, like, are you a couple? There is a barely perceptible ripple in the air ("No, of course, not!"), and a few awkward silences, and then a small rupture appears. The rupture grows in size, and then all of a sudden Léo wants to take up ice hockey and what is the point of riding to school together, anyway? It is all very uncomfortable, and heartbreaking, and all of sudden there is something terrible you will have to live with for the rest of your life.   

Close is also a very beautiful film. The aforementioned fields of Belgian flowers are breathtaking, but even they are merely a backdrop to the simple story that contains a bitter lesson. Ironically, it is a lesson you cannot really learn before the bell actually rings. 

One Fine Morning (2022)

Mia Hansen-Løve is hailed a genius by a great many credible film critics. To my shame, One Fine Morning was my first film by this French director, and I had clearly been missing out. I watched it late at night in a small hotel room, and it has stayed with me ever since. This is sensitive, sensual, powerful cinema.

The ever brilliant Léa Seydoux plays Sandra, a young widowed woman whose life is both hectic and incredibly stressful. She works as an interpreter and a translator (which is symbolic in the context of the film), she has to raise a daughter, her ageing father is suffering from neurodegenerative disease and her personal life is at worst nonexistent and at best deeply troublesome. The events are mostly centred around Sandra's father (formerly a renowned philosophy teacher) who keeps forgetting things and is in urgent need of a nursing home (distant echoes of Amour and The Father - but the film has a distinct voice of its own). Again, it is a simple story that contains lots of subtlety and substance (as well as a great deal of sex). To me, the film has many profound things to say about the interplay between reality, wishful thinking and pretence. And all that against the ravishing views of Paris (the film ends with a striking scene by the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur) and a song by Bill Fay.

One Fine Morning (actually a reference to the title of a possible biography by Sandra's father) is simply great French cinema. It is full of beautiful, complex characters who could speak about politics in a taxi car in a way that is no less stylish and alluring than a visit to the Musée d'Orsay.

Альбом. "DiP" (2009) / Port Mone.

Адразу ж адзначу, што я не збіраюся пісаць адны толькі хвалебныя артыкулы пра сучаснае беларускае мастацтва. Зусім не - а інакш не было б сэнсу пачынаць гэты праект. Інакш не было б сэнсу ў мастацтве, а таксама ў разнастайнасці пачуццяў, якія яно выклікае ў чалавека. Але ж нешта ўтрымлівае мяне ад крытыкі, і я адцягваю, зноў і зноў. 

Я належу да таго постсавецкага пакалення, для якога не існуе нічога больш сумнага, чым гук акардэона. Акардэон - гэта змрок і ўпадніцтва, туга і смутак. Я памятаю, як ён гучаў на вясковых святах, калі надыходзілі прыцемкі, і нехта выягваў аднекуль гэтую жахлівую зялёную махіну з бясконцымі клавішамі і кнопчакамі і пачынаў іграць. І хацелася выць ад безнадзейнасці і адчаю. Я добра памятаю таго мужчыну сталога ўзросту, што іграў на акардэоне каля Камароўскага рынку ў Менску. Кожны раз, калі я чуў яго, настрой імгненна псаваўся - прычым не так ужо важна, іграў ён нешта сумнае ці вясёлае. Акардэон рашуча адхіляў любую надзею... Хіба што на альбомах Тома Уэйтса ён не даводзіў мяне да думак пра самагубства. 

І тым не менш, акардэон займае цэнтральнае месца ў гучанні менскага інструментальнага трыа Port Mone. Менавіта яго чуеш, калі ўключаеш альбом. Гэты напружаны пераліў акардэона, які чамусьці так моцна нагадвае таемны гук аргану... DiP - дэбютная пласцінка гурта, якая выйшла ў 2009 годзе. Шмат хто аддасць перавагу другому альбому (Thou, 2014), які стаў калісьці сапраўднай падзеяй у беларускай музыцы. Шматлікія прызы і прэміі, а таксама званне лепшага беларускага альбома дзесцігоддзя. І ўсё ж, нягледзячы на захопленую крытыку і мае добрыя пачуцці да Thou, менавіта Dip падаецца мне самай разнастайнай, самай эмацыянальна насычанай працай гурта.

Першае, што хацелася б адзначыць: я не пішу пра добра беларускае мастацтва. То бок, мяне не вельмі цікавіць мастацтва, якое можна лічыць добрым для Беларусі. Так наогул нельга ставіць пытанне. Мастацтва можа быць добрым ці не - незалежна ад краін ды кантынентаў. Дык вось - Port Mone ствараюць выдатную музыку. Але музыку, якая паходзіць з Беларусі. 

Галоўнае, што ёсць у DiP - гэта інтрыга і прыгажосць. Прычым прыгажосць тая не падаецца ані правільнай, ані банальнай. Яна часта складаная, неспадзяваная, нават балючая. Заўсёды глыбокая, заўсёды інтрыгуючая. Кожная кампазіцыя на альбоме рухаецца і струменіцца (нездарама альбом цалкам прысвечаны воднай тэме - дарэчы, некалі тое хацеў зрабіць Міхал Анемпадыстаў, але не паспеў), кожная мае вялікую ўнутраную моц. Усё развіваецца, нічога не паспявае надакучыць (самая доўгае кампазіцыя на альбоме доўжыцца чатыры хвіліны). Ёсць тут пэўная містыка ("Tuna"), ёсць чароўны мінімалізм ("Catfish"), ёсць сапраўдныя выбухі інтэнсіўнасці ("Crossing"). Месцамі DiP нагадвае ECM джаз, але ж заўсёды акардэон надае некую рамантыку. І ўжо тая вяртае мяне дамоў.

Port Mone запісалі не так шмат студыйнай музыкі. Усяго толькі два альбомы (тры, калі ўлічваць суменсы праект з ДахаБраха). Але гэта толькі яшчэ адна падстава ў чарговы раз услухацца ў меладычныя, сканцэтраваныя парывы гэтага альбома. Які, імаверна, мог бы стаць добрым саундтрэкам для якой-небудзь атмасфернай еўрапейскай стужцы, але які наўрад ці будзе прыдатным альбомам для фонавага праслухоўвання. Гучанне занадта вынаходніцкае і інтрыгуючае, каб не аддаць яму ўвесь свой час. І потым гэты кляты акардэон... Здаецца, я пачынаю любіць яго. Ёсць моманты, калі ён вяртае мяне назад, у мінулае, але гучыць ён неяк па-іншаму. Больш стыльна, з большай глыбінёй і, можа, нават з надзеяй.