dream pop

Perfectly Intercontinental

Robert Cochrane — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 17:40:05 +0000

Perfectly Intercontinental Robert Cochrane March 19, 2021 - 13:40

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"Tonight I Need" - Olivier Rocabois & John Howard

Some songs just flow like a water over rocks. A sensual and exquisite experience that soothes

One such confection is the delightfully plaintive "Tonight I Need" a piece that glides and drifts like the fragments of a forgotten sonata.

French singer-songwriter Olivier Rocabois has an anglophile pop heart.

Honest and plaintive his work beguiles, creating touches of gentle reassurance for the soul.

Rising like a choral incantation there is an abundance of mastery of song-craft at work here.

From the simple piano motif it builds to a Left Banke slice of tender haunting chamber pop with touches of early solo Paul McCartney.

There are also Beatles traces in the harmony vocals in which he is deftly assisted by that English maestro of the tinkled ivories, John Howard.

A well kept, but gradually breaking UK secret who now resides in Spain

Their voices blend and meld like strawberries and cream on a summer's day.

Confident yet fragile it evokes "She's Leaving Home" by the Fab Four and The Beckies lost gem of a 45 "River Bayou."

It also has the haunted fragility of Bill Fay in its tone and timbre.

Darkness drifting into sunlight.

Three mere minutes that grow in majesty and grace the more times one listens.

Tonight I need

Someone to help me

Somebody's shoulder to cry on.

Sometimes I need

A mate of mine

Who could listen to my stories.

Oh the fake ones, the real ones.

We just want to talk about

Our lives and the wonders we long for.

Deliciously English but utterly European, the softly sonorous sixties vibe suggests Bowie in his early days perfections before his seventies' fame came a calling.

A perfect trailer for the forthcoming album Olivier Rocabois Goes Too Far, this single is a telling introduction to a unique presence.

His back catalogue deserves a backwards glance for other treasures.

On the strength of this he is a man who still has so much further to go.

Classy, reassured, but never showy,

Rocabois wears his influences discreetly well, a hint perhaps in a upturned sleeve.

He never falls foul of them.

They merely are the springboard from which to arc a promise of greater things.

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Swagger And Sway Beneath A Neon Glare

Robert Cochrane — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 15:48:43 +0000

Swagger And Sway Beneath A Neon Glare Robert Cochrane July 22, 2020 - 11:48

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Empire - Arielle Dombasle & Nicolas Ker (Paris Premiere/Barclay Records)

Some albums are sublime confections. A perfect amalgam of style, poise and kookiness. One such venture is Empire the second explosion of songs from Nicolas Ker (Poni Hoax) and his muse Arielle Dombasle. At first sighting they are an unusual pairing, the French-Cambodian rocker and the respected actress/singer with the sultry voice and ghostly air. It shouldn't work, but does, quite perfectly. If you like your pop intelligent, riven with references and old fashioned elegance, then this is the confection for you. Like a cross between Nick Cave/Leonard Cohen, Ker drawls and intones, and Dombasle evokes Marie Laforet/Vanessa Paradis in her vocal slinks and quivers. An elegance and wit is at large. Tongue in chic and shooting perfectly from the hip. Think Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra exiled from LA in the French rain. It would all fall asunder if Ker wasn't such an astute creator and embroiderer of superb songs. The album, like many has been delayed because of the current world crisis, but has been well worth the wait and the anticipation, with the delicious confetti of videos to charm and insinuate an increased sense of desire.

Proceedings launch with the jaunty "Humble Guy" a song that blends Ker's dulcet tones with Dombasle's piping and kittenish ease and a Sixties orchestration that suggests both London's Carnaby Street and a neon drenched interlude in Paris.

"Humble guy thought he could win the bet. Shot for the stars, cast a silhouette."

A lyric about a sense of failure, but one imbued with a delightful air of flippant sadness.

"Twin Kingdom Valley" has a Kraftwerk reminiscent heartbeat motif and an air of louche decadence. A song of narcissistic trepidation, it twists effortlessly along and slowly fades away, whilst lingering and loitering long in the memory. "Desdemona" possesses a tremendously catchy marching band conceit that allows it to step along with a wonderful automaton inflection, as Ker's voice underpins things like a officer barking out commands whilst Dombasle pouts and soars.

"Le Grand Hotel" stands as the sole French sung confection. A mix akin to Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, neatly underpinned by violin. Evocative moody and bewitching, and as Dombasle delivers an effortlessly wan vocal, Ker anchors the song with his distinctive lower register. A near perfect slice of wayward despair.

"Just Come Back Alive" contains a Giorgio Moroder-theme of European pop-disco textures, and a catchy hook, a catwalk sense of movement and odd riffs, before a subtle explosion of strings and drums, catchy and memorable it develops into an epic of almost cartoon-like proportions.

"But I fall down on my knees

I'm not even praying to anyone around

Just come back to me

And come back alive."

A mixture of need, a plea, and a command. As assured as it is honest, and a curt expression of vulnerability.

"Lost Little Girl" has a sweet, deceptive melody that rises and builds like The Stranglers did at their best. A strident confident song that flows and swerves in decided counterpoint to the tone of the words. There is an annoyingly infectious Euro-pop nod and wink in "The Palace Of The Virgin Queen" but it is effectively reigned in by an almost Rammstein heaviness, but it could still ignite like wildfire with its sparks of catchiness. A creation that should be remixed into an addiction for the ears, in all its dark and light nursery rhyme-like glory. More than faintly bonkers it has a life of its own that suggests the influence of the late Klaus Nomi.

The appropriately named "A Simple Life" is a mixture of Baroque folk and Francoise Hardy '60's elegance and shows what a refined instrument Dombasle's voice is. It bridges a perfect quiet interlude in the midst of such stylised concision. Utterly beautiful, and with a timeless brevity, the piece glides and sways like a leaf falling in the breeze.

"Deconstruction Of The Bride" unleashes a manic industrial filmic soundscape, a nightmare that flies above tinkling stabs of piano. A gothic panorama of the mind with a plethora of descending chords, it throbs and rises, and falls to again soar. Melding the likes of Ministry with Nine Inch Nails it betrays the breadth of shade that the album houses, without ever jarring the tonal landscape of its varied proceedings.

With "The Drowning Ocean" we are treated to a Glam-like piano fueled epic, akin to Mott The Hoople's "All The Way From Memphis." An accomplished partial pastiche that presents itself as forceful plea to treat the world with respect, a rock ballad of exquisite ache and accomplishment, it departs with a welling wealth of poignant orchestration.

"Cities sigh, cities moan.

Fires burn by the side of the road.

As we bleed, we bleed for the ocean."

"Enter The Black Light" arrives like a subdued and smouldering piece of of mannered elegance. Prancing and preening in darkened majesty, this stands as a song haunted by Nick Cave's restrained and tempered sense of pomp, as it slithers like a snake recoiling into darkness.

Finally "We Bleed For The Ocean" bewitches, an ethereal hymn for ecological sense, with a dirge-like beauty and Dombasle in the role of a warning siren. A fitting conclusion to a palette of finesse and splendid inspiration, and so the red velvet curtains, finally and quietly, swish together in conclusion.

"We bleed for the stars and the skies.

We could hear the sirens song

Today we can't hear anything."

Albums like Empire are rare. The visions it contains are wide but perfectly reigned in, and breathing, living proof that artistry remains a force we should cherish and desire in a world increasingly engulfed by auto-cued mediocrity. Splendidly, unashamedly romantic and decadent, this is a work that transcends its European origins by being universally appealing. Ker has a knack for distinctive and accomplished song-craft and in Dombasle he has the perfect counterpoint of light to illuminate his darkening scores. The whole thing exerts a sense of manicured madness, but never veers off the edge, and if it does it brings the listener back. All part of the exquisite journey.

Here is an album that reveres its ghosts with kindness. Listen and you'll see them rise in their refined and haunting glory. And somewhere in the rain a blue neon sign crackles and dies

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The Girl With A Thorn In Her Side

Robert Cochrane — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 15:17:13 +0000

The Girl With A Thorn In Her Side Robert Cochrane June 20, 2017 - 11:17

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Lynn Castle Rose Colored Corner Light (Light In The Attic)

Coming across visually as a prototype Nancy Sinatra about to enter The Valley Of The Dolls, Lynn Castle in the 1960s was an entrancing and beguiling entity. Her debut album finally appears a few years shy of her turning eighty, and it is a tremendous affair, an index of splendid and unrealized possibilities, as stark as it is haunting.

Vocally she sounds like a female Leonard Cohen who's been listening to too much Nina Simone, whose smoke-laced croak she frequently echoes. Her look though uber-girlie doesn't match her sound, and simply serves to enhance the appeal of her beauty and big, big hair. Think Warhol's Candy Darling doing an arch Barbie doll look and you are nearly there. Add Jackie O shades and you have quite simply arrived. Her sole single 'The Lady Barber' is a wonderful piece of autobiographical garage psych that has long found favour amongst collectors of the quality obscura. Produced by Lee Hazlewood and released on his record label in 1967, she sassies her way through the song with a Mae West-like intonation. It isn't camp as such, but it has real energy and verve, and is sexy, slinky and decidedly fresh 'n' fruity.

Quite why this tremendous talent has lain in the doldrums isn't much of a mystery alas. Mss Castle was a bundle of beauty and a whole host of anxiety. Creatively driven but desperately insecure her story is one of subtle self-sabotage, and bad luck. She was indeed a lady barber, at a time when men began growing their hair long, and adept at styling them in the new fashion that most barbers simply couldn't achieve, became a minor legend on the Sunset Strip. In 1967 she was declared 'Shapely Blonde In Blue Jeans Popular Barber In Hollywood' by the Washington Post. Her clients included The Byrds, Del Shannon, Stephen Stills & Sonny & Cher, and she even had a song of hers "Kicking Stones" recorded by The Monkees, whose manes she also tended. Sadly it didn't appear till over twenty years later when it was featured on a rarities collection of theirs.

Lynn Castle rubbed shoulders with everyone. She became friends with a pre-success Phil Spector, managed to sell a song she'd written as a teenager to The Spinners, and when she met Lee Hazlewood her future seemed both bright and secure. She literally wrote her songs in the closet when her kids were in bed, but her shyness limited her ability to present them properly. She was also befriended by Jack Nitzsche who got her talked into recording a demo of twenty songs, ten of which make up the body of this album. It makes the listener long to hear the rest, and when the songs, unadorned, and un-arranged slip by, you can imagine strings, a baroque Fred Neil meets Tim Buckley affair. When Lee Hazlewood moved to Sweden, Lynn Castle's brief ascendency dipped and was quickly forgotten. Like a faithful wine maker though, she continued to write and record demos but her day in the spotlight was gone for half a century, and she retreated to her rose colored corner.

Yet this sublime talent had a strangely intuitive belief in her own abilities, and the longevity of her canon. She admits with chilling accuracy. When I was young, making music in the 60's, I had this strange thought that one day I would be this old woman, and young people would come and find me and tell me that my music meant something to them'. That moment has finally arrived, and is much deserved. A reward to the listener who is finally allowed to hear to her songs, and a blessing to their creator who knew of their value all along. Finally her secret is being shared, and rightly so. Subtle, honest and raw Lynn Castle is more than a mere curio, she is the genuine article, but then she always knew that all along, and time has finally and fortunately caught up us with her.

Song of the Week: "Dreaming of Things To Be"

Dusty Wright — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 22:14:48 +0000

Song of the Week: "Dreaming of Things To Be" Dusty Wright July 23, 2014 - 18:14

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Don't know much about this American pop-rock quartet, but I'm sucker for a nice clean guitar hook and tight pop song structure. Apparently their lead vocalist Chris Anderson now makes Boston his home, moving from the band's homebase in Fort Collins, Colorado, but I couldn't tell you if that will be an issue moving forward. Check out two stellar tracks from their forthcoming September release, Living Asleep. Suffice it to say, if you're into Band of Horses, The Shins, or Arcade Fire, Fierce Bad Rabbit will most certainly appeal to you.

Not a Manson, Nor a Monroe, But a Marilyn Still

Robert Cochrane — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:53:53 +0000

Not a Manson, Nor a Monroe, But a Marilyn Still Robert Cochrane January 15, 2009 - 21:53

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Marilyn: Despite Straights Lines:

The Very Best of Marilyn (Cherry Red)

Fame spreads like a virus. Just as Boy George was popping eyes and turning heads with Culture Club, the record companies and their minions were eager to sign any of his squat-dwelling partners in gender crime. Marilyn was Blanche to the Boy's Baby Jane. His iconic appearance in the Eurythmics' "Who's That Girl?" video proved an alluring one. This was a pretty boy who looked like a dead screen siren, who amped the whole arena of gender expectations.

Marilyn was the Candy Darling of the Blitz crew. Where make-up merely hid the plain truth lurking beneath the facades that were Steve Strange and Boy George, Marilyn had beauty on his side. A provocative siren who fooled many into believing they'd pulled a girl until it was too late, Marilyn was a thorn in the side of convention. Suddenly a select aspect of club-life was confounding the tabloid notions of the British public. A maverick genie was getting famous and threatening the very fabric of convention.

Signed after a heated flurry of interest, things had initially seemed certain to succeed. His debut single, "Calling Your Name," had done brisk business, a smash across Europe and #1 in Japan. It seemed that this gender-bending entity would have a lasting career, but Marilyn being Marilyn didn't help. His next single, "Cry and Be Free," hit the charts at #31, but his coy appearance in a black monastic robe was just a little too much for the Top of the Pops audience, and the record slid down the listings. Boy George, with whom Marilyn endured an at times explosive friendship, referred to it as "Try and Be Me." It is one of those quirks of unfair fate that "You Don't Love Me," the follow-up, a delicious catchy piece of pure pop, failed to chart.

A pretty face with decent material was unraveling, a financial liability. Marilyn was shipped to the States to work with Don Was, but the resulting single, "Baby You Left Me in the Cold," was his last U.K. chart entry, peaking at #70. By the time Despite Straight Lines hit the racks in 1985, Mercury Records were at a loss about how to proceed with the nose-diving of Marilyn's career.

Personal problems quickly engulfed Marilyn as his career floundered. Drugs took their toll, and the attempts to leave the dead screen legend persona behind backfired. People knew the Marilyn they wanted, and it wasn't the pinstripe-suited man on the cover of the album. The hanging out days with Diana Ross and Andy Warhol evaporated, and for years he was excavated by those who wished to question him about the '80s, Boy George, or both. Then the musical Taboo brought his youthful excesses into a fresher limelight.

The Marilyn who stepped forward was a saddening sight, vulnerable and broken, his looks a memorable distance from the reality he now inhabited. Agoraphobic, suffering from years of heroin excess, and the ravages of mental illness, he cast a haunting and haunted presence. Now the reissue of his sole album, with copious bonus tracks, displays a consummate talent who could write a memorable melody. The deviant diva deserves greater recognition for his obvious abilities, and this album is a real pleasure, sublime blue-eyed soul at its best. A postcard intimating what might have followed, had he managed the ravages of immediate success a little better. If pop is about that brief transcendent moment, then Marilyn was the ultimate pop visitation. Contentious, fabulous, and intoxicating, it really couldn't last. That it happened, albeit briefly, is enough.

Marilyn, now in his forties, lives quietly with his mother in North London.

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