Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War
The toast of the Canadian indie scene, Stars have made an album that deserves more attention than it got when it was initially released a couple of months back. It's quite an 80s-sounding record - shifting between Bacharach-esque melodies (My Favourite Book), the occasional U2-style epic (Take me to the Riot) and keyboard sounds that wouldn't have been out of place on a China Crisis B-side. Lyrically, though, it's totally of its age and focuses on the fragile nature of modern love, from online dating to a romance that begins in the midst of a football riot. Melodrama and melody have always been a good combination and Stars pull it off with style.
In Our Bedroom After the War is on CIty Slang
Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
After making two wonderful acoustic folk albums as one half of Kings Of Convenience, embracing electronica on his solo album and singing over the top of his favourite records as a DJ (not as bad as it sounds), Erlend Oye finds himself in a four-piece rock band. That said, Whitest Boy Alive are a pretty minimal rock band – the music is simple, spacious and appears unspectacular on the surface. Nevertheless, it's lifted by the Norwegian's nonchalant, languid voice which keeps even the most hectic tracks (Burning and Don't Give Up are the obvious stand-outs) unruffled and lovely. A breath of clean, filtered, mountain fresh air.
Dreams is on Universal
The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust
This Danish duo of Sune Rose Wagner (on guitar, instruments and vocals) and Sharin Foo (on bass and vocals) were much hyped on their arrival in 2002 when they released an album built entirely around the key of B- flat minor. There are a few more notes explored here but The Raveonettes' song structure is still a simple one (layers of guitar noise plus pounding drums and sweet vocals). It works a treat on the fabulous Hallucinations and Blush, which are both wonderful 60s pop songs cut through with chiming, discordant, ear-piercing feedback, while The Beat Dies is pure Twin Peaks camp. With its themes of death, sex and desire, this is the perfect alt-rock soundtrack for fatalist bikers.
Lust Lust Lust is on Fierce Panda
Rufus Wainwright - Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Sings Judy! Judy! Judy!
Promoted as the gayest event ever, Rufus Wainwright sets out to recreate - in exact song order, in the same vocal key (where possible), with a slickly conducted orchestra and with talking bits in the same spots - Judy Garland's classic 1961 concerts. It is something only someone as witty and flamboyant as Wainwright could achieve. Released simultaneously as a CD and DVD and taken from his performances at Carnegie Hall in New York and at the London Palladium earlier this year, they demonstrate a singer at the top of his game. More vamp than camp.
Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Sings Judy! Judy! Judy! is out on Universal
Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas
As a side project, Stevens began recording a Christmas EP for friends and family every year - re-arrangements of hymns, cute instrumentals and his own original tinsel-themed ballads. The results are gathered together here in a handsome 5-CD box set. By their very nature Christmas albums are tacky novelties that often leave an embarrassing stain on the artist's career - but, strangely, Songs for Christmas manages to walk a line between sincerity and irony, and, despite Stevens's evident religious beliefs, even avoids being remotely preachy.
Songs For Christmas is out now on Rough Trade
Gorillaz - D-Sides
Sadly, it seems this animated supergroup is no more - 2D, we are told, is finishing his law degree and Russell is re-inventing himself as a personal trainer. It's a great loss to pop music, but as send-offs go, this is a remarkably good one - and is far, far better than odds-and-sods collections of B-sides and remixes really ought to be. The first of this double CD set features a couple of interesting demos, including a very early version of Dare (minus a chorus and Shaun Ryder but with a fine Human League sample). The second disc demonstrates how far remixes have come in recent times – they're not always an improvement but Soulwax's version of Dare and Hot Chip's Kids with Guns come close.
D-Sides is on Parlophone
Remi Nicole - My Conscience and I
Twenty-something drama school drop-out Remi Nicole - who was inspired to pick up a guitar after spotting Noel Gallagher outside Tiffany & Co in Mayfair (how street!) - has a serviceable line in sprightly pop tunes with dashes of ska, indie-rock and comic cut-ups of 50s BBC continuity-style voices. On the whole, it's upbeat, fun and much more summery than an album released in the depths of winter ought to be. There are also bonus points for getting kids TV show Grotbags into a lyric and for sticking two fingers up to those who think black girls shouldn't be into guitar music on the fab Rock ’n’ Roll. Remi's debut stands on the meridian line between Kate Nash and Jack Penate, so if you like or dislike either of those two, you'll feel the same way about this light and casual offering.
My Conscience and I is on Universal
Jaymay - Autumn Fallin'
A rising star of the American 'anti-folk' scene (essentially folk music that doesn't sound like folk music) Jaymay is a singer-songwriter blessed with many talents. The story of a love affair in New York, Autumn Fallin' beautifully treads a line between stagy and confessional. It's smartly written, sardonically delivered, full of clever lines and there's a lot of fun and heartache along the way. The peak is the epic You'd Rather Run - a ten-minute chugging waltz that owes much to Bob Dylan and sloshes about with dashes of tinkling toy piano, plucked fiddles and a glowing Hammond organ. A great album that's certain to build via word-of-mouth, so start spreading the news.
Autumn Fallin' is on Heavenly
Kylie - X
Following the format well trodden by Britney, Fergie, Gwen - and before them all Madonna - X teases cutting-edge dance sounds and production techniques into a shiny box and ties them all up with a sparkly bow. It doesn't really work. Kylie is at her best when setting out to make feel-good pop rather than a cool statement, so it's the more simplistic tracks that work best here - which means that the camp disco of The One and Wow, the kitsch Like a Drug, single 2 Hearts and Sensitized are all fabulous. But, sadly, like an under-stuffed Christmas stocking, there are plenty of fillers to pad out the treats. All said and done, though, a solid comeback from the popstar's popstar. 
X is on Parlophone
Burial - Untrue
Only a handful of people outside Burial's family know his real identity. This would be unremarkable except for the fact that Untrue - his second album - is one of the most stunning and powerful pieces of musical alchemy since Portishead's Dummy. The style that dominates is a musical paradox for untutored ears - fast, double-time rhythms often coupled with reverberating slow-dub bass rumbles. Burial takes these strange patterns to a much higher level, interweaving layers of crackling scraps of noise, fragments of vocals and snatches of gorgeous grooves fading into the ether. The atmosphere is dark, nocturnal and troubling but pulses with a glow you can't quite catch. Unlike nearly every other album of the past decade, it only really works if you listen all the way through. A wonderful record that transcends its underground cool.
Untrue is on Hyperdub
Amiina feat. Lee Hazlewood - Hilli (At the Top of the World)
This spoken-word celebration about the wonder of snow deserves to be Christmas number one for many reasons. For starters, it's a proper Christmas record that gives you the same life-affirming, soppy feeling about humanity as It's A Wonderful Life. Secondly, in the year of Lee Hazlewood's death, it would be a fitting tribute to the great man. And most importantly of all, it's not by an X-Factor winner. Do the right thing, people of Britain!
Hilli is out on Ever Records
Camp Bestival
Not content with hosting that traditional end-of-summer fancy-dress shindig on the Isle of Wight, the team behind Bestival is launching a new weekender in 2008. Camp Bestival will take place between July 18 and 20 at Lulworth Castle in Dorset and will feature a typically eclectic line-up with headliners The Flaming Lips, festival favourites Billy Bragg and King Creosote, the lesser-spotted likes of Suzanne Vega and Kid Creole, plus two legends in the form of Chuck Berry and, somewhat disturbingly, The Wurzels - who're in the area anyway doing a bit of combine harvesting. Standard adult price is £120, children £60 and under 12s free.
For full details go to ticketline.co.uk/
campbestival.html
Beat Stevie
Listen up: Mike 'The Streets' Skinner continues his DIY TV show with this highly indiscreet interview with ex-Busted, I'm-A-Celebrity winner Matt Willis. Tags: Beat Stevie 22 Willis Skinner
Nothing Rhymes With Orange
Don't be fooled by the joke name - this Miami-based four-piece are seriously good and, although very obviously inspired by British bands like Stereophonics, James and Oasis, haven't entirely dispensed with their American-ness. To this end, they deliver a big, crunchy commercial sound that could see them following the likes of The Killers and Interpol in delivering the musical equivalent of coals to Newcastle. They're about to play a few British shows but would be well advised not to follow their MySpace friend Jezika's advice to "enjoy London and don't forget to rock with your cocks out".
See more of the band at myspace.com/nrwo
Reviews by Johnny Dee
FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 7, 2007
