Paul Catten - The Beauty of Decay

Paul Catten may be known for screaming through outfits like Barrabus, but here he turns to music that would happily sit aside Faith No More or The Gutter Twins on a playlist. Melodic rock with visceral and noisy edges. A little bit grunge, a little bit metal, a little anger, a little ranty, a little croony and sinister and appealing in equal measure, this is perhaps the most limber and accessible offering from the guy who also has another musical venture called Stuntcock! which explores horror ambience and noise terror, as it were.

The pace is mostly of a mid-tempo nod of suppressed aggression that bursts into guitar noise (guitars and bass by Matt Keen with Mark Seddon and Jim Saunders). There are also stabbing guitar riffs typical of metal and the occasional piano tinkling some melancholia or ‘The Twilight Zone’ ominous threads. There are also cameos from a more electronic sensibility here and there.

It starts with no-nonsense low-key aggression and shock declaration of ‘All Dead’ and grinds onwards to ‘Freak (Mona Lisa)’, which features the chant from Tod Browning’s film, although the title hints at its subversion of norms. This continues that theme posited by the title of the simple juxtaposition of opposites to create obstinacy, a rebellious streak.

And then it launches into a full-blooded cover of Beck’s ‘Asshole’, its most straightforward and sweetest track, which is in this context, of course, the gag. But it’s also a highlight.

More impressively, continuing a more reflective thread, there is the twist of regretful strings and groove of ‘Maybe I’m Ashamed’ as it artfully shifts tones. The vocals fall into the kind of overdubbed voices psychopaths hear in slasher films, the kind coming from the other room. While guitars chug the threat of violence below, a saddened rock solo leads on top, suitably schizophrenic in its outpouring. And it’s not the only time the album pulls this off, hinting at a molten core, aggravated chantings beneath a poprock-sad surface. This is a density that rewards deeper and repeat listens.

It’s the kind of postmodern rock that embraces conflicting moods and expression simultaneously. The sorrow of being angry, for example. The kind of music that is always on its toes, always demanding attention. It’s very enjoyable and shows Catten’s crossover ability without compromising his prickly, contrary nature.

'Time Thief' - The Legendary Mark Peter Savage

THE LEGENDARY MARK PETER SAVAGE

“TIME THIEF”

Here’s an album about work-life sung as sleazy and seductive synthpop. Mark Savage’s produced a previous album called ‘The Sex Singer’, and here are his musings on workaday life sung as sexily as he can. An example: ‘The Truant’ is spoken-word and slinky and should maybe something like the deadpan monologue of Grace Jones’ ‘Walking in the Rain’, but the defiance in the musings here are about avoiding work and responsibility. This is without the political edge of Savage’s ‘My New Boss’, but still raises an eyebrow at hierarchy and authority. This is for the proletariats living the dream of working with a secret agenda of indifference in capitalist mundanity. It sounds sultry, but the main theme is shirking work while on the job.

“I’m not here for the money/I’m not here for the show/ I’m here to mess around until it’s time to go,” he sings on ‘Time Thief’, the point where the album launches from low-key trip-hoppy ambience into full electropop vibe. He may be crooning “I’ve got gentle hands,” on ‘Gentle Hands’ but it’s alluding to the toll of chores rather than a come-on. It’s an amusing gag. There is always a little affectation to Savage’s work, a definite persona, but it’s knowing, smart and witty, full of literacy and as much self-mocking as self-regard in its pose. It’s the attitude of rebellion but kept under collar of the job attire.

Savage croons over the wide-open spaces generated by synthesisers and heavy reverb, the kind reminiscent of Suicide – but there’s more of a lounge lizard than punk agenda here. He often sounds as if he’s unexpectedly stumbled into the song and feels the urge to pontificate, pointedly but understatedly. It’s full of the beeps, pulses, keyboard crescendos and diminuendos that make electronic music so appealing. But there are also guitars underpinning ‘Captain of Storytime’. The album is an entire experience: let it ebb and flow for its full length. It often drifts off into keyboard ambience, but then it knows to launch into something like a seaside organ riff for ‘Gentle Hands’. And throughout, Savage pleasantly and drolly croons, verging upon and then sometimes fully committing to spoken word.

And so it ends with a wry, mostly spoken magic-realism tale of a character that retired as a boy – ‘The Retired Kid’ – that captures the sense of wanting to be older when you’re young and wanting to be younger when you’re old. Here’s a character that didn’t have to go through the games of shirking off work to kill hours until it’s time to finish. But then he says, “People tell me I might be tough when I’m twenty-one and all my friends are dead,” it brings into focus the kind of unquantifiable loss that defines old age.

It’s a delightfully surreal, unsettling and amusing finale to an album that shows a deft touch with its track listing, observations and genre form. The album as a whole feels lush, soothing, sardonic, entertaining, confident and demanding of your attention.

Miodes - "Neutron Star"

Firstly, full disclosure: I feature on the track ‘Pick It Up’ on Miodes’ new album, ‘Neutron Star’. It’s an epic (19 tracks, not including many that are comprised of two or three songs/movements; and lasts one hour and fifteen minutes) and my guest appearance is indicative of the recurring conversational style and overlapping voices that distinguish the album.

Miodes is the music made by Bernadette Hinde, whose earlier albums ‘City Folk’ and ‘Salty Water’, tread a very acoustic feel that is very folk-friendly as she sings melancholic character vignettes. ‘Neutron Star’ has that element as well but features a wide breadth of genres to tell its tale of forbidden love between Luna and a boy from another world. Tracks like the three-part ‘Halcyon/Your You Plus One/Faker Moon’ go from choir-like dreaminess to pop to the ambience of overlaid speaking voices without missing beat. ‘My Instruction’ is reminiscent of early Cabaret Voltaire, whilst ‘Ugly Bird’ has a little reggae lilt and ‘The Thick of It’ and ‘Bus 13/If I get Lucky/We Are All Aliens’ include full-on singalongs. And that’s not including the excursions into dancefloor beats. There’s even recorders reminding of the kind that feature in ‘70s kids shows and ‘The Climb’ features the percussion of ping-pong balls. It’s distinguished by a playful experimentation throughout. There’s a hint of Fiery Furnaces to the pile-on of musical styles. This often brings many different vocal inflections and styles from Bernadette that haven’t quite been heard on those earlier albums, although her clarity and direct connection to emotion remain intact.

It’s a “sci-fi musical piece intended for dance theatre. It follows the story of Luna, who falls in love with a boy from another world. But an evil being pursues and separates them. In their quest to reach and save each other...they fulfill a special destiny.” But don’t be put off by how simplistic the love story sounds. Beneath the sci-fi exterior, Miodes interest in the scruffy, down-to-earth perspective and characters of London life lies intact, and the intergalactic plot hardly downplays her humanitarian agenda or the subtext of immigration and integration: after all, it does end with ‘We Are all Aliens’. There are the usual Miodes' bag ladies and buses (well, a spacecraft of some kind treated like a bus), Rastafarians, London and Irish accents and a grounded feel that ties everything down, no matter that she sings of losing her heart in an interstellar storm.

Frequently surprising and often moving too, the work put into this is self-evident, as is the influence of a range of music. For all its lengthiness, ‘Neutron Star’ is continually fascinating and diverse; and for all its experimentation, it never loses an underpinning pop sensibility that means this is an accessible indulgence of an ambitious and thoroughly engaging kind.