The Car is Arctic Monkeys’ weirdest album, and it’s their most overtly melancholy work too — like James Bond themes for a terminally depressed spy. It’s certainly the saddest-sounding music Turner’s put his name to since the dusky tunes he contributed to the soundtrack for Richard Ayoade’s Submarine in 2010.
“There’s no audience, it’s us, the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra and a live band,” he expands. “But what we wanted to realise was an audio-visual experience where the music was at the centre. It seemed a nice change from what we’d done before.”
Alongside the 12-track album, therefore, came a raw and powerful film directed by long-time a-ha collaborator Stian Andersen, shot in Bodo, 90km above the Arctic Circle in the north of Norway – already screened and positively received in selected cinemas around the world last month.
I have a Stian Andersen print on my wall just behind me (I’m writing this on Tuesday), bought from the man himself, and featuring yours truly at a recent a-ha concert.
A new Mogwai album Every Country’s Sun comes out on Friday. Here’s one of the tracks from it: Party in the Dark.
Bit of a new direction from them – very vocal, rather shoegaze. And a video which thinly veils the reproductive process through wax sculptures and 60’s-style sci-fi.
I love it, but hardcore fans are apparently less convinced. Fortunately for them, there’s promise of more traditional Mogwai sound on the other pre-release, Coolverine, which also has a compelling, classy, monochrome slo-mo video to go with it.
The new album from The Prodigy – The Day Is My Enemy – is out, and it’s unapologetically bleepy, shouty, loud and beautiful. Already at number 1 in the UK, it seems that Keith et al. have been sorely missed.
Here’s the mad video for Wild Frontier. And yes, that’s a stuffed moose on a motorbike.
Somewhere deep in the past of this blog, I wished for the renaissance of 90’s bands, just as we have enjoyed (or endured, I suppose, depending on your point of view), something of a revival of 80’s bands touring and re-releasing once again. If this album is part of that (and yes, I know that there’s the argument here that The Prodigy never really went away), then I, for one, cannot wait. It’s brilliant. This is one of those albums that will certainly be up there, vying for second place in the coveted 6000 miles… Album of the Year award 2015.
If you want to go even deeper, head for the excellent KillSonik remix (set to Youtube to HD and phasers to stunning).