The new cynics

(Morning Star, Saturday 04 February 2006)

ALBUM: Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
(Domino)

KIRSTIE MAY introduces us to new rock upstarts the Arctic Monkeys, a Sheffield four-piece with a nice line in snappy lyrics and top tunes.

If you don't know who the Arctic Monkeys are, you must have been burying your head in the sand.

They are a critically lauded, recently successful band with a nice line in snappy lyrics and rocking tunes.

But, if that's all you know, you're still pretty clueless, because there's so much more.

Like a gang of little scoundrels who besiege your local offy, these four Sheffield boys have something of the glue sniffer about them.

Graduates of the school of junkie youth, like a Busted put together by Pete Doherty, Alex Turner and pals are dirty and dour, displaying a disenchantment and cynicism far beyond their average 19 years.

Their first single, I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, was number one with a bullet off the back of a guerilla net campaign.

The song soundtracks a hundred school discos - sweaty and sordid, mindful of its own youth.

Dancefloor's chart success was echoed by its follow-up When the Sun Goes Down, a tale of hookers and horror in the north, ruled by a riff straight out of Keef's back catalogue.

The album clearly has a lot to live up to - the success of the singles means that the eyes of the music world are fixed on their every move - and there are already detractors baying for their demise.

But, take a step back from all of this superfluous journo opining and the fact remains that the Arctic Monkeys are just a very good band.

Maybe you don't like Turner's disinterested vocal, particularly on the sweet Mardy Bum.

That's your choice, of course, but bear in mind that he is merely aping the misanthropic Dylan at his most churlish.

Maybe singing in Yorkshire accents pisses you off, although the band themselves prize that honesty above all, as detailed in Fake Tales of San Francisco, a warning tale for indie poseurs everywhere.

Maybe you feel that their better-than-chav style is unpalatable, as they clearly have roots in that culture. Witness A Certain Romance, the album highlight.

Rolling in with a heavy drum sound, the song itself displays a ska tempo, the backdrop to a tale of two tribes destined not to see eye-to-eye.

But Turner's detailing of the differences creates a "them and us" scenario, that we know better than smashing people's heads in down the Red Lion, as much good as this knowledge does us.

When people say they like good music, it's often because they like a nice tune or the singer's got good hair.

But it takes effort and passion to like the Arctic Monkeys, because that's what they deserve.

Grows on you

(Morning Star, Saturday 28 January 2006)

ALBUM: Regina Spektor - Mary Ann Meets the Grave Diggers and Other Short Stories
(Transgressive)

THE idea of a experimental female pianist may make most gag and, trust me, there is a part of Regina Spektor's mythology which doesn't sit well.

That self-aware logo - so it looks like "respekt‚" do you see? - the associated cool from rock'n'roll pals like The Strokes, the gothic illustrative work on this album sleeve - all have the smell of trying a little too hard and ticks every one of my "irritating" boxes.

But then, there is the music. Hailing from New York via Russia, Spektor's self-awareness is probably less studied than it seems.

A genuinely talented pianist, she seems to have taken a Tori Amos fan club membership and made it into her own shtick.

This CD comprises all the highlights of Spektor's career so far and, truly, it is a thing of beauty.

Opener Oedipus has a charming naivety, both lyrically and vocally.

In Consequence of Sounds, Spektor showcases her humorous side with the lyric "the National Geographic was being too graphic/ When all she had wanted to know was the traffic." A clumsy couplet, sure, but one with more heart than Coldplay could ever hope to instil in their work, with their bland song-for-everyone template.

The standout track has to be the single Us, with its haunting strings and clearly defined characters - it is a truly career-defining piece for any artist, established or emerging and should guarantee this newcomer centre stage for class and majesty.

Regina Spektor is an acquired taste for certain, but delving into her dark little world is a bit like text sex with an ex - at first, it'll make you feel uncomfortable, but, once you throw yourself into it, you won't remember life without it.

Magic of water

(Morning Star, Tuesday 24 January 2006)

EXHIBITION: Elizabeth Ogilvie - Bodies of Water, Dundee Contemporary Arts

Having worked with water for over 10 years, Fife resident Elizabeth Ogilvie's show is a real coup for the DCA, an outstanding installation which exhibits strength and vulnerability in equal measure.

Gallery 2 is a gateway to the main event, showing Ogilvie's collaborative piece with renowned Taiko drummer Joji Hirota.

The piece features three screens, one showing off Hirota's rhythmic understanding of water and its movement and one displaying Ogilvie's reaction to the music as she excites the water with a rod.

The third and main screen displays the water itself changing from inanimate blank canvas to an intense, vibrant illustration of the collaboration.
The main attraction in Gallery 1 offers two large pools surrounded by a platform.

In the dim light, the first pool is mesmerising in its absolute stillness.

Acting as a reflective surface, the piece becomes more about that which can be seen in it, than what it is itself.

Over the pool, film is projected of the three main processes of the water cycle, a representation of the indefinable magic of water.

The second pool in the room is agitated, water being actively manipulated by way of pipes in the ceiling.

From them, precipitation falls in cycles, starting out as steady drizzle and eventually cascading down in a deluge.

Ogilvie's ongoing fascination with water seems never better placed than when in such close proximity to one of Scotland's grandest rivers, and Bodies of Water shows the lengths to which this natural resource can represent the fluidity of music and of human perception.

The artist's recent pledge to "promote a greater respect and understanding for water" is both brave and daunting, but through installations such as this, Ogilvie goes some way to persuading all that global bodies of water are ever-changing and our rapt attention is warranted.

Something with a little difference

(Morning Star, Thursday 22 December 2005)

PANTO: The Marsh King's Daughter, The Byre Theatre, St Andrews

A HANS Christian Andersen story has all the magic that one could want from a festive performance and the Byre's nice line in magical Christmas theatre is well documented.

With two comical storks as narrators, there is silliness there from the start for the youngsters in the audience, but the darkness and depth of the tale is always close to the surface.

Billed as a legend, The Marsh King's Daughter is set in the wild moors of Scandinavia and the far-off shores of ancient Egypt.

An Egyptian princess is tricked by her jealous sisters and left for dead in the marshes.

She is taken in by the mythical Marsh King, to whom she bears a child, but the king allows the child to be given to a human family in return for the princess's continued residence with him.

Baby Helga is rescued by one of the kindly storks and taken to live with the Vikings, but she has a secret which leaves her turning into a toad every evening at sundown.

Raised as a young warrior by her Viking foster father, Helga's mother tries in vain to connect with her often quite brutal daughter. Only when Helga appears after dark in her other form does her mother see her as a loving and caring creature.

This Byre production, written by Stephen Wrentmore and Rita Henderson, is a sweet and touching tale and well acted by the cast, including newcomer Alex Tegear as the menacing Helga with many life changes to go through.

Geoff Hennessy and Justine Balmer bring their paper storks to life and invent a real relationship with the viewer, chatting about married couple concerns as naturally as any soap actor.

The music features some excellent Disney-style bombast, with Sion Lloyd giving a roaring performance as both Bodil the Viking and the Pharoah.

The only weak point seems to be Kristian, played by Simon Masterton. An actor with range and skill he may be, but, here, he comes across as uncomfortable and wooden, a situation only exacerbated when he and Helga take the stage alone, as his nerves seem to rub off on her.

A wonderful show as always from the Byre, it would be hard to say that any weaknesses mar the show, so infused with magic and sweet sentiment it is. A lesser-known story, but all the more special for it.

Russian tycoon pays £6.8m for sporting estate in Scotland

(The Scotsman, 12 December 2005)

A RUSSIAN billionaire has bought a Scottish sporting estate for £6.8 million.
Vladimir Lisin, one of Russia's wealthiest oligarchs with an estimated fortune of £5.4 billion, has splashed out on the 3,300-acre Aberuchill Castle Estate, near Comrie in Perthshire, just days after it went on sale.

Lisin, 49, a steel tycoon, was so eager to have the 16th century property that he offered £800,000 over the asking price.

He is one of several Russian businessmen who made their fortunes during Russia's privatisation of state industry, and is said to be second in wealth only to Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, an oil and gas businessman with £15.7 billion to his name.

However, unlike other oligarchs, Lisin retains a place in the favoured circle of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

As president of the Russian National Olympic Shooting Association, Lisin is likely to have chosen his new estate for its extensive recreational resources, as it offers grouse shooting, deer stalking and game fishing.

The price is the highest amount paid for a Scottish estate this year, but the popularity of such property is being put down to the relative low cost compared with similar land in the south-east of England.

Aberuchill has been described as the perfect Highland retreat, and offers five reception rooms, a billiards room and 13 bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms. There also are around twelve estate dwellings, a farm and 704 acres of forest.

John Coleman, of estate agents Knight Frank - which was not involved in the sale - said: "Ten years ago it was Hong Kong expats coming home. Then there were the Dutch, and now the Russians. There is always a group of new buyers coming in with more money, and that's great for investment for Scotland."

Scottish Land Registry documents show the sale was made by Aberuchill Limited, a company which lists Edward Thiele, an oil executive from Houston, Texas, among its directors.

Lisin made the purchase through Forestborne Limited, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Russian company Novolipetsk, of which Lisin owns a 90 per cent share, is the country's biggest steelmaker, valued at £8.7 billion, and plans to sell shares on the London Stock Exchange for the first time this week, with an expected profit of more than £400 million.

As a married man with three children, Lisin is well known in business and shooting circles. His rags-to-riches story has seen him work his way up from a welder just 30 years ago, but he has kept his private life out of the spotlight.

Andrey Sidorov, Lisin's personal spokesman, said he could neither "confirm nor deny" the purchase of Aberuchill.

Gordon McCartney, chairman of Comrie Community Council, said: "There seems to be plenty of money being spent on the estate, but we haven't seen much of the new owner.

"All we see are black limousines with dark windows coming through the village."

Local councillor Colin Crabbie added: "Aberuchill has always been a bit of a mystery, but there have been a number of planning applications to do up houses on the estate.

"Hopefully that will be a good thing."

Pete Doherty's junkie joke?

(Morning Star, Saturday 12 November 2005)

ALBUM: Babyshambles - Down in Albion
(Rough Trade)

THE travelling circus of Pete Doherty and his band of merry men is something to behold. The true essence of punk, they thrash out their anthems for doomed youth with the passion and fervour of the hopeless and looking every bit the urchins.

Playing live, Babyshambles really are a sight - vivacious and thrilling - and the enjoyment of the crowd is evident.

But not so on record. The name "shambles" has never been more appropriate.

The band shuffle into the studio and make a few grunts into the mic, hoping that this constitutes a proper, grown-up album, but they didn't bet on one thing - the expectations for this, the new project from a founding member of one of Britain's most important bands of the last decade, are way too high for the boys to be able to get away with this kind of shiftless, amateur work.

The singles from Down in Albion, Fuck Forever and Killamangiro showcase the work of a much better band, one lurking just beneath the layers of apathy and self-absorption.

But, instead of fulfilling this early promise, this album reeks of "that'll do" and, between the dull The 32nd of December and tremendously tacky Pipedown - as in "put the pipe down" - Doherty's reggae ode to Pentonville prison is a desperate attempt to add credibility.

As the first recorded long-playing effort from Babyshambles, Down in Albion is nothing more than a junkie joke. And Doherty, inevitably, is the punchline.

A long way

(Morning Star, Saturday 22 October 2005)

ALBUM: Depeche Mode - Playing the Angel
(Mute)

THE ethereal world of Depeche Mode is an interesting place for sure.

Dave Gahan seems to think that he's some kind of messiah and is clearly delighted that he has had the honour of his own acquaintance.

The appearance of the word "angel" all over this record - their first in four years - lends credence to the fact that Gahan reckons that he's a wee bit spiritual - and as far as pomposity goes, it's clear that the Mode still have it in spades.

But, for a band who started out with a definitively 1980s electronic-cheese reputation, they've come a long way.

Their gothic electronica is once again "in" and their trademark dourness seems to compress the misery that many of us feel about modern life and hand it back to us on a platter.

The first half of Playing the Angel is packed with a raft of impressive would-be singles, including the wonderful opener A Pain that I'm Used To and The Sinner in Me, while single Precious attempts the lyrically unthinkable - rhyming damaged with manage - but makes it all work regardless.

Although the tunes drop off noticeably in the second half, the intensity is still there and it rings as true as on any of the band's previous best work.

Depeche Mode had better watch out, they're approaching their 20th release and they've never sounded so fashionable.

I'll go to jail... But not Iraq

(The Sun, 17 October, 2005)
Court martial for RAF ace

A Scots RAF officer faces being jailed for refusing to return to Iraq because he believes that the war there is illegal.
Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith is to become the first British office court-martialled for refusing to serve in the conflict.
Proceedings against the highly-decorated officer for 'refusing to obey a lawful command' are due to begin this year.
Last night a pal of the 37-year-old unit medical officer for RAF Kinloss in Merseyside revealed, "He takes the view this is worth going to prison for."
Spirit
The friend added, "Malcolm joined the RAF out of a spirit of idealism. It was good old Battle of Britain stuff - helping the good guys fight the fascists.
"When he first went to the Gulf in 2003, his awareness of the legal position was far less than it is now. He is now ion no doubt that the war is illegal."
Kendall-Smith - decorated for two previous tours in Iraq - was suspended on full pay of around £40,000 a year after being quizzed by Royal Military Police in June. He was charged on October 5.
The defence case Kendall-Smith is putting together is set to hinge on the RAF law that a serving officer is justified in refusing to obey a command if it is illegal.
Lawyers will argue his commission requires him to act under 'the rules and discipline of war'.
International experts insist that there was no legal backing for the invasion of Iraq, launched before the United Nations passed a second resolution approving force.
Under military rules, Kendall-Smith cannot comment.
His lawyer, Justin Hugheston-Roberts, said, "This is the first case of its kind involving Iraq."
The Ministry of Defence confirmed, "An RAF officer is due to appear before a general court martial."

Franz's plan

(Morning Star, Saturday 15 October 2005)

ALBUM: Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
(Domino)

UNIQUE music is a rarity these days.

Everyone sounds like everyone else, blurring genre barriers and baffling music fans until there's no way to tell who's the rocker-turned-rapper and who's the pop star-turned-chanteuse.

Franz Ferdinand are hardly unique in history - their jagged guitar stabs and skinny ties owe more than a little to the new wave bands of the 1970s - but, in the here and now, they're one in a million.

First single Do You Want To - sounding unfeasibly like Don't Bring Me Down by ELO - recycles the winning formula of Take Me Out, welding two different songs together, but it works to bring listeners with them through an album that's much heavier and certainly more adventurous than their 2004 debut.

The noisy cartoon swagger of This Boy shows that Franz have balls aplenty, while slower tracks such as Eleanor Put Your Boots On are not out of place either. The standout has to be Evil and a Heathen, an unapologetically punchy blast of pure punk.

It seemed as if Franz Ferdinand's trick was to capture the zeitgeist. By adopting an angular Krautrock style when guitar music as a whole was moving in just that direction.

But the more you listen to this, the more it seems that Franz themselves set the template all along - and we are just their slavish style servants.

Doherty washes off tabloid dirt

(Morning Star, Saturday 01 October 2005)

LIVE: Babyshambles, Fat Sam's, Dundee

THE circus of Pete Doherty rumbles on. Even people who don't care about him, his missus or the drugs are bombarded with it every second from every angle.

The packed crowd in Fat Sam's would be easy to put down to that media saturation and people are certainly animated before the band come on, presumably because they want to be ready to dodge the Doherty vomit, although many from the previous night's gig in Aberdeen were not so agile.

So the band come on. It's not the second coming and there isn't an aura emanating from this skinny young whippersnapper in a striped jumper. Quite the opposite, as, with his hair plastered with sweat to his pasty brow, Doherty looks, for all the world, like a centre half in a junior school six-a-side.

Opening with Do You Know Me? his demeanour seems defiant. He sings: "I don't think so" in response to the titular question, determined to perform the music that he loves and journos be damned.

The idea that the crowd are just morbidly fascinated with the tabloid tale is quickly dismissed, as voices raise all around to join the singer in a raft of rocky, as yet unreleased material.

The fans start up with the well-known "ooohh ooohh ooohh," before the band launch into Killamangiro, but, shortly afterwards, a power cut stops the music short.

Gradually coming back in with bassist Drew McConnell pounding out the Rapper's Delight bassline is genius and the audience, predictably, love it.

That's probably the biggest shock. As this thin, shaggy-haired youth spins around onstage, hitting himself on the head with the microphone, the band actually seem much more together than their last gig in Dundee a mere 12 months ago.

The songs are tight, the crowd go mad for recent single Fuck Forever and there is a genuine mutual affection bubbling under all the raucousness.

Earlier in the day, Doherty told an interviewer: "It's exciting to be doing at last the thing we do best, well, the only thing we do really, which is play our tunes."

A quote which sounds for all the world like rock star rhetoric turns out to be truer than 100 tabloid column inches.

Babyshambles are a confirmed musical success and that's before they've even released their first record.