June 2007's list

Music


Hey Girl - Delays


Long Time Coming - Delays

1. Faded Seaside Glamour (album); Lost In A Melody (single) – DELAYS. It follows that after me going crazy for Delays’ sophomore effort, You See Colours, I’d be backtracking to their debut album to get more of the good stuff.

If I had discovered Delays by their first album, I’d have gone, “Jeebus! What the hell happened to Delays?” when I put on their second album because the two albums sound like two completely different animals. Where You See Colours did nearly what it said on the tin with its synths, thumping bass and beats you can wig out to, Faded Seaside Glamour is a dreamy, airy, bittersweet collection that you’d put on while you lie on the grass and look at the sheep-shaped clouds in the sky. There are jangly guitars, soaring vocals and melodies so blissed out and mellow you could take them home to meet the parents.

Nearer Than Heaven, Hey Girl and Long Time Coming are some tracks that jump out but on repeated listens I like the bruising Stay Where Are and the child-like chiming that is On. Bedroom Scene is a gem too, a mix of longing, lust and regret though I found a better version recorded by LBC radio a few years ago that is so moving, had I still been in my melancholic youth, I would have shed tears at the sheer beauty of it. For despite its innocent sound, there is a streak of sombreness running through the album that hints of deeper thoughts than the superficial sunniness.

Lyrics are equally emotive; Gilbert sings of ‘monsters making the evening news’ and ‘we could talk forever, nothing would get done’ in the dreamy Nearer Than Heaven, ‘maybe what I’m trying to say, I lost you in translation to lover from the hand of a friend’ in Bedroom Scene and alludes to tantrums with ‘threw your Lego in the lake, why’d you wanna go do that for?’ Heh, anybody that references Lego has got to be good in my book.

I have to admit that initially I found Faded Seaside Glamour hard to get into especially when coming from the more assured, focused and edgier You See Colours. I think I was confused, not quite sure what to make of them and how to define who they were and which box their sound fit into. Perhaps the most important thing about Delays, is that they are honest about what they like and only attempt to sound like themselves, whatever the critics might say about them sounding like a fusion of Cocteau Twins & The Hollies. And while we’re here, let’s make it clear – no, there isn’t a woman in the band; yes, it’s a bloke singing; yes, his voice has broken; and no, they don’t wear leopard skin trousers and eyeliner. Well, not anymore, anyway.

Then we come to Lost In A Melody, released as a single in the period between the two albums that first hinted at the future, more varied sound of Delays. Aaron Gilbert’s musical leanings (less of an influence on Faded Seaside Glamour as he joined the band when a lot of the songs had already been written) comes to the fore here as the song opens with what I imagine my sister would call electronic wankery. But thanks to the Gilberts’ musical craftsmanship the melding of artsy, sensitive Greg’s tunes to Aaron’s edgier beats doesn’t jar, and we get a foot-stomping, ethereal number.

The biggest difference though, between Delays' two albums is that Faded Seaside Glamour is essentially a bedroom record; its melodies written in isolation and inspired from half-remembered dreams, whilst the vivacity and dance-like qualities of You See Colours is evidence of it being born on the road. Still, whatever its inspiration, Delays have produced two beautiful albums to date. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Edit: Having driven to Kuantan and back with Faded Seaside Glamour on repeat in the car, I've got to add You Wear The Sun, No Ending, Satellite's Lost and One Night Away to my favoutites, although I don't think there is a bad song on this record. Truly an album that grows on you.

2. Everybody Move It – TEDDY THOMPSON. Despite its title and its lyrics telling you to ‘bump and grind, have a good time’, there are no electronic beeps or thudding basses here, only a gently plucking guitar and Thompson’s liquid vocals doing the gentle urging.


Books

1. In the Name of Honour – MUKHTAR MAI. You can’t have missed this one in the news. A Pakistani woman is sentenced to being gang-raped by her village tribal council in retaliation for her brother allegedly sullying the honour of a woman of a higher caste. It made headlines around the world and severely embarrassed the Pakistani government when Mukhtar Mai, instead of being ashamed and committing suicide as she was expected to do, got angry and fought for her torturers to be punished for their crimes.

It’s hard not to get angry when you initially read something like this – more proof that humans are evil bastards that should get nuked to world’s end and the most evil bastards of all are bastard men and their frigging ego trips bigger than their dicks. As much as I wanted to be angry on her behalf, there was something in Mukhtar’s story and the way she came across that beseeched calm and understanding. Not understanding for her torturers (she’s still angry at them) but for her all that were caught up in events and how those that stood by while she was raped were only victims of their circumstances.

When I first read of Mukhtar’s story in the news a few years ago, my first thought was, “That’s typical, the randy brother can have his way with any woman in the village, but if caught, it’s always the women who pay the price while he gets of scot free.” I was horribly wrong of course and did a disservice to Mukhtar’s brother for judging him before I knew of the facts. Sadly, he was as much a victim in this as Mukhtar was. He was only twelve when he was ridiculously accused of dishonouring a woman of a higher caste, beaten and sodomised by the woman’s male relatives and kept imprisoned for several days before he was released to the police.

What struck me as rather sad, was that Mukhtar was luckier than most women in her society who were raped, because her family, and most importantly, the male members of her family, were equally horrified and angered by what had been done to her, and supported her in her quest for justice. As Mukhtar pointed out, it wasn't uncommon for victim's family to ostracise her for something beyond her control.

A humbling read, and it just goes to show what one woman can do to change her world.

2. Humble Pie – GORDON RAMSAY. I don’t normally read biographies or memoirs because I don’t believe anybody is so great that they need to have their life story spelled out for me and have me pay for it too but I couldn’t resist getting sucked into this arresting autobiography of Gordon Ramsay. I read the first chapter and a half standing by the bookshelf in the store and ended plonking RM49.90 for the privilege of reading the rest of it in the comfort of my own home.

My first memory of Gordon Ramsay was him yelling at some burger van bloke with crooked teeth on an episode of a reality TV show called Faking It, some five or six years ago. By that time, I was long enough in the north-west of England to not bat an eyelid when somebody swears, but Gordon Ramsay introduced me to all sorts of inventive new ways you can curse at somebody. It was an entertaining show, elevated above all the other crappy reality shows around by the fact that its stars were non-annoying and genuinely inspiring. Fast forward many years later and Gordon Ramsay is everywhere on television and doing very well on the restaurant circuit, judging by the number of Michelin stars that he has won. Some may have had the privilege of dining in his restaurants, but the ordinary pleb knows him by his no-nonsense manner, drive for perfectionism, and oh yeah, his screaming foul-mouthed, artery-bursting tirades against the hapless cooks who fuck things up under his watch.

Ramsay comes across in his autobiography the same way he does on television: brutally honest, insanely passionate and driven. Ramsay isn’t one for being sentimental and it’s evident in how he details his itinerant childhood and abusive father. He describes his father’s alcoholic rages, the death threats against his mother when she left his father, the physical beatings, the psychological torture inflicted upon the family – these are touched on but he never dwells on it, stating them in a matter-of-fact way then going on to the next subject.

It certainly gives an insight into how Gordon Ramsay is what he is today and it certainly gives another dimension into the psychotic bastard you see on television.

3. Death Du Jour, Deadly Decisions, Bare Bones, Monday Mourning – KATHY REICHS. I picked these up after watching the TV show Bones starring David Boreanaz and Emily Deschane, which were based on the character Temperance Brennan which in turn is based on the life of Kathy Reichs, a forensic anthropologist and woman extraordinaire who boggles me with not only managing to do her job in two different countries, but also to write fiction on the side.

From the same genre of books as Patricia Cornwell and Tess Gerritsen, Kathy Reichs has the advantage of churning out slightly 'meatier' books in terms of the cases she presents. Always well-written, well-researched and definitely a page-turner.