CULT WITH NO NAME
PAPER WRAPS ROCK
Trakwerx
More strangeness? Oh, okay then, as long as you don’t mind something strange seemingly all but entirely normal; chaste and rarefied in a subtly disconcerting manner. They admit to being post-punk electronics, but also with a thing about ballads, which may scare you, because who wants an alternative Coldplay? Erik Stein and Jon Boux (‘rhythm vocals?!!) don’t entirely go that route, as there’s no pompous masquerading as heartening quests or explosive emotion. What they do verges on light orchestral musing, with peculiar lyrical disenchantment.
Having been struck by their track on the 17 Pygmies album a while back I think this album will go down well with true 80’s indie aficionados, and people today who want a little more meat on their ambient bones, as that’s what it comes closest to in my eyes, the feel of modern ambient music, but with that trapped inside the melodic muscle of more conventional songwriting, creating interesting and cement-hard, credible compositions. The album also comes in a cunning card cover, with a cute illustration of the band I shall have to include here, with sleeve like a depressed digipack, the CD placed in a slot in the inside back cover, the lyrics simply printed all over the card, like a latterday version of the early Savage Republic card covers.
In ‘The Morning After The Night Before Last’ I’m tempted to say his troubles seem so far away but it’s a delightful piano at work, like something crossed between the accompaniment to a romantic silent film, and a flow which makes you become lost in thought, oddly reassuring. Liquid vocals accompany piano through the tricky, winsome ‘Blame It On Oil’ and you’re with a duo who can play immaculately and sing likewise. They’re like the Anti-Coldplay; musicians woken at a time of musical tedium, come amongst us to perplex.
‘More Of The Same’ is as compelling as any of the rubbish major label nonentities spew out, and should be something major indies look for, even though they might not know what to do with it. Plinky percussion behind the keyboards and vocal guile, it’s a deftly desirable piece.
‘Business Is Good’ even has a souped-up Eltonesque cadence but overall it’s more of the same, almost casually catchy, and the press release mentions bands which probably give you a better illustrative set of comparisons than I manage – Associates, Tuxedomoon, Erik Satie, Keith Jarrett and Shriekback. Throw in Furniture, at their most fragrant, and Stephen Poliakoff too please, because I like the effect, and then play these two back to back again, they’re so beautiful.
‘Waiting For The Punch Line’ is, seemingly, a love affair with technology, and could herald a sectioning order and the demure ‘Operation Failed’ is a form of club noir, with a very soft underbelly, a bit like Bill Pritchard on manoeuvres, everything fluid but somehow just ambling, and this is richly enveloping music of simple tones, which could be minimalist but for the huge, rich reach of the pieces. It’s also a bit weird, as the lyrics are fairy oblique, you just hope you know what’s going on. ‘In Every Way But One’ could be Baby Bird all grown up and flying, but it’s so short. Some people would develop something this enticing through various verses to spiral upwards, but often CWNN don’t hang around long enough for such ideas. They tie up another pretty parcel and shift onwards on to the next track.
It really is very close to tradition at times. ‘Start It Again’ is phlegmatic and ironic pop, as if by waspish daydreaming cousins of The Beautiful South, but ending with an airport departure lounge ambience. ‘Girl’ has an elaborately traipsing sound but couldn’t be simpler with observations of implied regret in the girl and her life, only this is mawkishly close to Ally McBeal soundtrack material.
Then the boundaries blur again, and back again. ‘Maslow’s Dog’ is filled out, almost crooning its odd lyrics over idling piano, ticking rhythm and florid, introspective sound. ‘Wormwood’ is very unusual and with some serious disquiet trapped in the words there around the graceful piano; still a fresh bloom to something intrinsically rotting. ‘Product Of’ seems too close to orthodox indie so the weary words may be clever with their accusatory terms, but it’s an elegant plod. ‘That’s The Power Of Television’ is strange in its pleasant manner because the singer doesn’t exactly sound let down by the loss of his love, whereupon he kicks the woe around a bit more through ‘Jenny’s Tongue’ and if not morose at least it feels rueful, its solemn air quietly seductive. ‘Yes People’ is a thoughtful suicide after more resigned defeatism, and then it’s gone.
An unusually captivating record, it is an indie treasure, one of those albums where after a few listens you believe you’ve had it years.
http://www.cultwithnoname.com
http://www.myspace.com/cwnn
http://www.trakwerx.com
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