New Music Monday - Parades, The Middle East

This will hopefully become a regular piece every Monday, with a hope of shining a light on either local or international talent that have released ear-catching music sometime in the preceding week.

This week I thought I would offer up two incredible tracks from two of Australia’s brightest musical collectives (and two of my favourites of past years if I may say without too much bias).

Parades - 'Water Stories'

Parades won critical acclaim last year with their debut release ‘Foreign Tapes’. The album was an eclectic journey across a vast musical spectrum, highlighted by the band’s ambitious soundscapes and expeditious songwriting overseen by the incredibly talented Jonathan Boulet. Boulet manages to deliver an impeccable level of production nous to every sound he creates, whether it is in his own solo project, with Parades, or one of a number of other bands he has so far worked with. It appears he has created another gem here with 'Water Stories', the first single to be lifted from Parades sophomore record, due out sometime later this year.

'Water Stories feels' like a natural follow-up from 'Foreign Tapes', as the band take pieces from their debut release and form a new, perhaps even more grandiose sound typified by the floating guitar lines that hold the track together. The song lyrically is reminiscent to 'Lung Full of Light', from 'Foreign Tapes', which too questions a life beneath the water, yet where the former appears more adolescent to a certain extent, 'Water Stories' has a greater sense of reach both in a musical and lyrical sense. Echoed voices hold a presence throughout the track, while sampled beats collide with Boulet’s precise stick-work to build a song that is structurally as sound on the first listen as it is on the 21^st. The crescendos that each moment of the track builds towards suggests that 'Water Stories' represents a feeling of almost reaching pinnacles, of being so close to something, of constantly striving to go further with the end in sight, and then the blissful feeling of reaching such a height.

Parades bear a striking presence in the modern Australian indie scene, creating music that constantly pushes boundaries while remaining relatively simplistic at it’s core. If 'Foreign Tapes' wasn’t enough to ensure their position amongst their peers, then it appears their follow-up may cement them as one of Australia’s most lauded rock acts.

• 'Water Stories' can be downloaded for free from paradesmusic.com now. The band is playing at Jive on April 16.

The Middle East - 'Black Death 1349'

Townsville folk collective The Middle East have been touring endlessly it seems since releasing their 2008 mini album 'The Recordings of The Middle East', which gained success in 2009 after being re-released as a 5-track EP. Tracks like ‘Blood and ‘The Darkest Side’ cemented their place as alternative radio mainstays, yet the darker side (pun) to the group’s music possibly gave fans and critics alike a sense of what this band was truly capable of. Songs like ‘Beleriand’, ‘Lonely’, and ‘Pig Food’, which was left out of the 2009 reincarnation of ‘Recordings…’, demonstrated a completely unique group; the atmospheric folk sounds that at times felt eerie and unsettling on these tracks defined The Middle East as a folk collective as good as any in the world. However, the band released a generic feeling track in ‘Jesus Came To My Birthday Party’ late last year, which simultaneously displayed the band’s lighter elements in combination with a feeling of giving in to their surroundings. Yet ‘Black Death 1349’ reinforces The Middle East’s versatility in many ways.

The song never really takes off from first gear, but it doesn’t need to. It is in the simplicity of ‘Black Death 1349’ where it’s beauty lies. A sinister tale of children dying and Jesus Christ being the survivors’ saviour is ruggedly spun over a lightly plucked acoustic guitar line. The production on this track really sets it apart from any of the band’s other releases, with a much more focused effort ensuring the band maintain their grandness whilst creating a vast distance that often shines through between the vocals and the music itself. It is a reflective ambience that slowly gets you in, and although it may come in at just under three minutes, it hopefully bodes as an indicator of what we may come to expect from the band’s debut full length album.

• 'Black Death 1349' can be downloaded for free from the Golden Plains website now. The Middle East's long awaited debut album 'I Want That You Are Always Happy' will be released on April 8, with a slew of June tour dates to follow.

Crystal Fighters - Star of Love

There is an alluring sense of mystery surrounding UK group Crystal Fighters and their debut album Star of Love. This mysterious nature is conveyed firstly through the album cover, which shows two masked witches standing aside an exotic looking woman with percussive instruments and is set presumably in a Spanish jungle, where the band draw the majority of their influences. It is then noticeable in the broad range of musical stylings that are drawn from throughout Star of Love that demonstrates the band’s attentiveness in combining as many elements as necessary to create a track they feel content with. The mystery also extends to the themes implemented in the band’s songwriting; according to the band there is a “cosmic element” in each of their songs which was influenced by a half-written operatic manuscript left behind by one of the band members’ grandfathers, who became a recluse in the latter years of his life. It was in these writing that Crystal Fighters opted to look into more conceptual aspects of life rather than focusing on the basics of particular situations.

As was aforementioned, these songs are heavily influenced by the music of the Basque region of northern Spain. The band use traditional Basque instruments such as txalapartas and txistus (10 points for pronouncing these correctly) to great extent throughout Star of Love, and the vibe they aim to give off becomes evident early on in the album. Yet it is their fusion of these instruments with a number modern day musical offshoots (think Latin acoustic guitars and Spanish lyrics melding together with dance beats, flourishes of synth and heavy electronic build-ups) that really create the Crystal Fighters sound. And they certainly deserve some level of credit for attempting to produce something so original and conceptual on the whole.

The only difficulty with these kinds of albums is overcoming the imposed facetious nature that they tend to carry, and Star of Love is no exception. It is almost a case of the more you know the lesser the experience becomes. Crystal Fighters make music that generally, and by all means minus any offence, does not take much thought to envelope. This overall makes for a completely enjoyable listening experience, one that evokes hope and happiness on the whole and will be appreciated by many, that much is clear. Tracks like Plage and Follow are the most indicative moments on Star of Love that completely demonstrate the band’s musical direction, combining every element of their sound to create some completely incredible tracks. Other standout songs on the album include Champion Sound, which sees the band dapple in flourishes of synth reminiscent of Four Tet’s recent work, and Swallow, which cleverly blends winding acoustic melodies and distant panpipes with heavy dubstep – and in case you were wondering, yes, this does work on so many levels.

However, this is an album that does take a number of listens to fully appreciate. Upon running this through for the first time you may get the feeling of ‘what have I just been listening to?’ The problem with Star of Love is that it comes in blocks; an aural onslaught of heavy dance tracks is thrust upon you at first, then the album slows down and slightly trails off into unnecessary tracks (see particularly I Love London) before once again reclaiming the listener’s attention towards the end of the album. There is no clear flow between each track, which, if implemented, would have made Star of Love a complete success. Furthermore, if you completely take away the cited influences that were drawn upon by the band on this release you will find an upbeat, eclectic, and mostly uplifting collection of songs that would rate highly in their own arena. It is hard though not to think about the manuscripts that many of these songs are based on, and in doing so, wonder about where these stories fit exactly in the context of each song. It almost becomes an instance of the band thinking too hard about what they are putting out, and feeling the need to justify everything they produce.

Crystal Fighters will certainly be a mainstayer on the live scene, with the nature of their music surely hard to resist on any dance-floor they perform on. The band has created a fantastic, carefree vibe on Star of Love, and although this appears as somewhat of a conceptual album, the group should have no trouble following this up in future releases. And to be honest, wherever this music is coming from I want to be there, and I trust you will too.

• According to a recent interview with triple j, Crystal Fighters debut visit to Australian shores is "imminent" (perhaps a Splendour In The Grass appearance), so this is what we may come to expect from the band in a live sense later this year.

2011

Okay, it appears I haven't been around these parts too much in the past 6 months or so (shit, time does indeed fly). No that I have been inactive on the reviewing front, most often I have just neglected this forum for one reason or another. But I have decided to make a comeback in the hope that someone out there may read this and appreciate the opinions of a passionate music writer. As mentioned, I have produced a few articles in the past few months, and they can all be read here: http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/people/sam-1710/portfolio/articles/ Most notable of the articles include a review of Little Red's 'Midnight Remember', an interview with Benjamin Plant of Miami Horror, and live reviews of Cloud Control, Alexisonfire, and Hungry Kids of Hungary to name but a few. Perhaps you can enjoy these at your own leisure.

In the meantime I will hopefully continue to post more frequently on here in order to keep you up to date with various live shows and well-documented albums. It is only February, and there has already been some fantastic (and some not so fantastic) music released this year, which I will hopefully have a chance to back track and provide an opinion on. And of course, the music world was surprised last week when Radiohead dropped their 8th album 'The King of Limbs' seemingly from nowhere, so it would be wrong not to have a view on that in the coming days. I think that is all. The first review I will provide for this year is from UK group Crystal Fighters, who gained some early 2011 success with their track 'Follow'. Look for analysis of 'Star of Love' above this post.

Ciao.