St Austell Brewery // Tribute Cornish Pale Ale

Tribute is brewed by St Austell Brewery in the Cornish town of the same name. No, there isn't a town in Cornwall called Tribute.

St Austell Brewery's 4.2% pale ale is sold in a brown 500ml bottle with gold and purple labelling which tells us that Tribute is "a moreishly drinkable beer". As with all beers I haven't tasted before, I like to let the first one dictate whether or not it is moreishly drinkable. Luckily for St Austell, Tribute is very moreish. Excellent presentation, although perhaps the colour scheme is a tad regal considering Cornwall's long-running quest for self-rule.

Tribute complements poultry dishes well - try it with spicier chicken dishes. Its citrus component is not overwhelming and gives the odd subtle surprise. A very enjoyable beer, one of the better pale ales brewed in England. Sorry, Cornwall.

CJ09/10 A moreish pale ale with subtle hints of orange zest. Strikes a good bitter/sweet balance.

Badger // Fursty Ferret

Brewed in Blandford, Dorset by Hall & Woodhouse, Fursty Ferret is an amber ale. One of that brewer's 9 Badger Ales, it is a malty ale incorporating oranges.

Given its sweet taste - derived from the use of oranges in its recipe - Fursty Ferret offers good accompaniment to pork dishes.

Available on cask, Fursty Ferret is also sold in bottles by retailers throughout the UK. Offered in a clear 500ml bottle the ale's golden brown colouring and citrus ingredients makes it very tempting for warm summer evenings.

The spiel from Hall & Woodhouse is that ferrets would sneak into a local inn to sample the ale. Who would blame them when it's this good.

CJ08/10 One of the best amber ales out there. Malt and zest combined to perfection.

Daft Punk // Random Access Memories

Deified and worshipped Parisian electro outfit Daft Punk released their fourth studio LP Random Access Memories on 17 May via Daft Life/Columbia Records. A full eight years on from the seminal Human After All, the album's release concludes several months years of speculation and given all that hype counts itself among 2013's biggest releases.

Writing in the Guardian days ahead of the release, Dorian Lynskey had this to say about the hype:
"On 14 April, a clip from the video for Get Lucky was debuted at the Coachella festival in California, inspiring more buzz in 90 seconds than most of the bands on the bill."
Can Thomas and Guy-Manuel deliver?

There comes a weigh-up in the career of every established band whose album n+1 earns them an expanded following - the elephant in the room at the post-mortem is usually "Where do we go from here? Do we give Johnny-come-lately another dose of what he wants or do we experiment again?"

Three choices:
(i) Reinvent - go back to the drawing board if you want to succeed artistically and preserve your career.
(ii) Rehash - churn out more of the same if you want to succeed commercially in the short-term, but prepare for doom.
(iii) Retire gracefully.

Wise bands choosing only from (i) and (ii) know that whatever it was that worked this time might not work as well next time. Queens of the Stone Age didn't write a rule book after Songs for the Deaf, they wrote Lullabies to Paralyze to reward loyal fans whilst shaking off the hangers-on. Likewise in the world of electronica, Booka Shade didn't give us another set of club-friendly electro tracks after the success of Movements, a de facto soundtrack to the summer of 2006. Electronic acts that have been around for decades - Underworld and Nitzer Ebb spring to mind - have reinvented themselves constantly and still sound fresh today.

Luckily after an eight year weigh-up (punctuated by a live album, a world tour and a movie soundtrack, of course) Daft Punk opted not to regurgitate and repackage Human After All and have decided instead to keep pushing boundaries.

Random Access Memories opens with Give Life Back to Music. After a whirlwind pianos-and-guitars intro which might best be described as Welcome to the Jungle-esque, the track breaks down into unashamed disco funk with plucky bass and synthesised lyrics. The flairs are on - now let the disco-posing, finger-clicking and hip-swaying begin. Welcome to the Jungle reappears briefly, but we all knew that this was never going to be a Guns'N'Roses effort.

The filtered lyrics and swinging bass continue onto The Game of Love, a slow downtempo funk track whose lyrics deal with loss in the aforementioned game. There's not much to this one really - it's not particularly beautiful nor are the lyrics as deep as they could be. The mood brightens for Giorgio by Moroder which starts out with spoken word from Italian disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder. He recalls his early career and his quest for a "sound of the future", culminating in his Eureka moment when he routes a clicking sound through a Moog modular synthesiser. That clicking sound pulsates behind Giorgio for a few bars before Daft Punk's sound of the future is unleashed upon us. And it is awesome. Giorgio returns halfway through, offering his motto for artistic creativity:
"Once you free your mind about the concept of ... being correct, you can do whatever you want so nobody told me what to do and there was no preconception of what to do"
Daft Punk take over the reigns again, and after just 9 epic minutes of synthesisers, strings, guitars and drum splashes, Giorgio by Moroder has defined the album, leaving us with a true impression of what Daft Punk aims for in 2013. Fade to black with Giorgio's clicking sound.

Lyrically and musically, Within is the opposite side of the same coin on which The Game of Love was minted. Within is the shinier side of the two, not for its upbeat mood but for its artful brilliance. The lyrics are introspective, concerned primarily with the search for one's own identity:
"I've been for some time / Searching for someone / I need to know now / Please tell me who I am"
Within serves to demonstrate that Daft Punk are capable of writing pensive lyrics - they are not preoccupied with futurism and positive emotion.

The Strokes have surrendered the NYC indie rock crown to Vampire Weekend and Julian Casablancas' vocal on Instant Crush is more likely to threaten Imogen Heap than Ezra Koenig. The French masters insisting on synthesised vocals once again, Julian's whiny contribution makes for one of the less rewarding Franco-American collaborations on this album.

Lose Yourself to Dance sees the return of the funk and the first of Pharrell Williams' two appearances. This upbeat track has a bit more energy about it than those that go before it. Despite the promising title it is uneventful and highly unlikely to make people lose themselves to dance.

Touch starts off with almost 2 minutes of howling winds and a snarling demonic voice remembering touch and needing something more than touch. That demon becomes a human - Paul Williams - who sets the scene for a space-age jazz festival. Brass instruments, natural drums and... more synthesised vocals. A solid track, but by no means the album's stand-out, it breaks down with a choir and space guns before Paul shows us the door:
"Touch, sweet touch, you've given me too much to feel / Sweet touch, you've almost convinced me I'm real / I need something more, I need something more..."
So after all that messing around with electronic gadgets, the sense of touch has almost convinced Paul that he is real. As for Daft Punk, the plethora of synthesised vocals is failing to convince me that they're Human After All.

Lead single Get Lucky was released on 19 April - four weeks ahead of Random Access Memories - and features Pharrell Williams' second (and more significant) vocal contribution. The subject matter is exactly what it says on the tin. This is the happy-go-lucky bachelor's The Game of Love. The music video for Get Lucky has clocked up a full 45 million views on YouTube in just six weeks. Not bad considering the "music video" is a still image.

After Get Lucky we move into the golden years of Random Access Memories and the album seems back-loaded with golden tracks. The influence of epic Westerns such as The Big Country is evident at the start of Beyond, although these two space cowboys were probably aiming at something a bit more like John Williams' Star Wars Main Theme when they wrote it. One of the more tolerable synthesised vocals on the album - because it's their own and it's there throughout the track - tells us about neon dreams and neon love. Taking Aerodynamic and Around the World as vocal templates, this is Daft Punk hitting the nail on the head. They struggle when they modify someone else's vocals. Beyond is devoid of emotion and channels the tranquil, sterile quality of space travel that Daft Punk is all about. Its sheer simplicity makes it one of the stand-out tracks on the album. Follow-up Motherboard is an instrumental composition that showcases Daft Punk at their very best. There are two tracks on Random Access Memories - Motherboard and The Game of Love - which start off with subdued piano and soft brush drumsticks evocative of The Doors' Riders on the Storm. Unfortunately that is the only positive comparison I can offer on The Game of Love, and it lasts merely a few seconds.

Fragments of Time is a radio-friendly offering but the track with real second single potential is Doin' It Right, a collaborative effort featuring Panda Bear whose vocal brings to mind MGMT and Empire of the Sun. Unsynthesised of course, and all the better for it.

Contact opens with an astronaut in radio dialogue to mission control. Thereafter it is an instrumental track with heaving organs employed in way which is very similar to & Down by German electro producer Boys Noize. The album closes with 90 seconds of dissonant fuzz, perhaps intended as a curtain call on the era of noisy electronica that flourished in the wake of Human After All. At least they didn't give an epilogue to Julian Casablancas.

CJ07/10 Worth the wait, living up to most of the hype. Let down by overproduction and an absence of natural vocals.
Playlist it with:
Chromeo // Fancy Footwork
Jean Michel Jarre // Oxygene
Underworld // Beaucoup Fish

Vampire Weekend // Modern Vampires of the City

New York City's Vampire Weekend released Modern Vampires of the City on 7 May via London's XL Recordings. When compared with their previous work these dozen tracks are sober and restrained. Vampire Weekend sound like they have matured, but is it for the better? Hit play on one of 2013's most eagerly anticipated releases to find out.

The most striking feature of Modern Vampires of the City musically is that Vampire Weekend's broad instrumental inventory has been revamped. Many of the familiar sounds have been demoted or even omitted. There is a shift in sound into territory which can broadly be described as nostalgic and melancholic. It is not an entirely unfamiliar sound, playing up the chamber music aspect of their sound. The calliope, pipes and tribal drums take a back seat. Harpsichord, church organ and choral backing vocals fill the void. Where the jumpy A-Punk spawned second album Contra, the courtly atmosphere of that album's Taxi Cab is evident in much of Modern Vampires of the City.

It is business as usual for Ezra Koenig whose lyrical witticisms and double meanings have been keeping Rap Geniuses busy since the album's release. Vocally, Ezra's style and delivery remain unrivalled among his indie contemporaries. His standout performance is on Diane Young, tipping his cap to Rockabilly and Elvis influences while dabbling in talk box effects. After listening a few times you begin to imagine what a cover of George Michael's Faith and/or a duet with Imelda May might sound like.

Modern Vampires of the City is notable for deep pensive lyrics and there are songs here which convey melancholy, confusion and anger - emotions not previously associated with Vampire Weekend. This added depth gives a sense of permanence about Vampire Weekend which may have been lacking even after 2011's excellent sophomore Contra.

Let's explore the idea that Vampire Weekend's music has matured, that it has become nostalgic, melancholic or even pessimistic. Not wanting to judge a book by its cover but with due reference to the album sleeve, Manhattan is shown dressed in smog, with only shadowy north-facing facades visible. This is not Vampire Weekend's work - it is that of New York Times photographer Neal Boenzi - but there is no doubting that it was chosen by the band and a contrast is evident when compared with the vivid imagery which bedecked Vampire Weekend and Contra. Like the towers on the sleeve, this album is dark and gothic. Ecclesiastical and medieval sounds are everywhere.

 

What was once considered a temporal novelty act has asserted its permanence with this record. The scenery of Ivy League campuses, Cape Cod and Nantucket Sound has been ditched. Vampire Weekend present themselves as natives of New York City - shapen by hard urban surroundings. Life is tough.

The worldbeat sound is less evident. We had come to expect tracks laden with influences from African and European folk music. Instead we hear railroad rhythms (Unbelievers) and rockabilly lyrics (Diane Young). When old world sounds come through, it is for epic effect, with pipes of the Far East driving the latter part of Unbelievers and tribal drumming on Everlasting Arms. One more thing on instrumentation: you are unlikely to have heard this much harpsichord on a pop record since The Stranglers' heyday (Step, Don't Lie). The band that earned fame offering a mish-mash of world genres has settled down, honing in on all things American with hints of European folk.

Hannah Hunt evokes the sound of Sufjan Stevens' Illinois with soft guitars, slow piano and careful storytelling. The lyrics recall the narrator's journey west with Hannah from Providence to Santa Barbara. The people they meet offer sound advice but the narrator and Hannah are care-free and Ezra repeats the key line:

"Though we live on the U.S. dollar / You and me, we got our own sense of time"

There is a brief eruption of sound towards the end of the track which fizzles out and the piano brings to a close what is arguably the best composition on the album.

Second single Ya Hey was released to coincide with the album release in early May. As the track title might suggest this is laden with lyrical reference to Jewish experience - Zion and Israelites are mentioned and fire and flames might even be considered as an oblique reference to the Holocaust. This lyrical theme carries through to Hudson whose drums sound a lot like those heard on Portishead's Machine Gun. After Hudson Modern Vampires of the City shies away via Young Lion, a minimal piano-led track lasting just 1:45. Compared with previous closers this is something of a backdoor shuffle, but that's the whole point - politely bringing the curtain down on the album without fanfare or fuss.

With this release Vampire Weekend have conquered the kingdom of NYC indie pop-rock, acceding a throne which has been hotly contested but never won since vacated by The Strokes circa 2006. Long may they reign. They have also established themselves as an act worthy of being taken seriously. This is a band which now sounds ready to record music and tour together for some time to come.

CJ09/10 One of 2013's most highly anticipated releases doesn't disappoint. NYC's indie princes graduate to kingship.
Playlist it with:
Band of Horses // Cease to Begin
Bombay Bicycle Club // A Different Kind of Fix
Foals // Total Life Forever
The Stranglers // The Collection 1977-1982
Sufjan Stevens // Illinois

Sambrook's Brewery // Wandle

Wandle Ale is brewed at Sambrook's Brewery in Battersea. A light ale at 4.2% ABV, it is named for the nearby Wandle River.

The beer itself is quite light and refreshing, a golden caramel colour. For food accompaniment Wandle goes well with poultry, seafood and fish - it is great with Thai food. Wandle Ale also makes a good session beer and can be enjoyed without food on a mild spring-summer day.

Wandle retails at around £4.20-£4.80/litre and is packaged in a brown 500ml bottle with smart blue-black-silver labelling. The overall feel is quite clean and polished for an independent brew, with a smooth, glossy label. Brewers should note that this bottled beer has a much better presentation than those still sold in unimaginative bottles with cheap paper labels.

CJ09/10 Enjoy chilled in Battersea Park on a warm summer's day. Great with spicy chicken/prawn dishes.

One of CJ's five favourite beers

Vondelpark // Seabed

Vondelpark released album Seabed on Belgian label R&S last month. The Peckham-based trio's debut LP carries a decade of dreamy, murky and slow-paced tracks that blend together into something surprisingly uplifting.

Opener Quest is dominated by a guitar riff that swings and grooves while vocalist Lewis Rainsbury contemplates his getting older and suggests that he might be planning a lunar expedition. The track also features chimes and wonky synth leads, hinting early on that a broad instrumental palette will be employed on Seabed. Pianos come to the fore and vocals recede on follower Blue Again, the happy-sad theme beginning to emerge.

The album takes its first real emotional plunge with Dracula, a slow-moving track blending warbled lyrics with pulsing bass hits and reverberating chords. Equally suited to late-night listening or the morning after the night before, this track is a heavy-hitter with real attitude and a weight about it. If it's not intoxicating, it is the recovery position.

California Analog Dream - which preceded Seabed's release as its lead single - introduces elements of Americana to an already diverse soundscape. The track's lonely wailing harmonica and sea-breeze sweeps are evocative of Neil Young's Heart of Gold and Harvest Moon respectively. Steel drums help lighten the mood as we enter the album's latter stages.

Despite an honest bassline and some of Lewis' more intelligible vocals, the title track creates one of the trippiest sounds on the entire album. This experience is laid-down with an intricate, twitchy riff that hovers about. The licks are more full-on, self-assertive way-markers on an otherwise meandering voyage.

Curtain call Outro for Ariel is a beautiful track, the piano tripping over itself deliberately to create an unsure and echo-ey vibe over the first 2 minutes. The rhythm then peels away and Mr. Rainsbury leaves us with the gloomy refrain:

"I'm on the Seabed / Might as well just be dead"

Vondelpark's is an electronic sound, but that is not to say that these lads are into making harsh and clangy robot music. There is none of the cold, stripped-down musical emptiness whose questionable merits have been tirelessly expounded by the xx Zane Lowe of late. A cool, relaxed atmosphere is created on Seabed which ebbs and flows between tracks and within them. The beats are soft and fuzzy, the drums are trippy. There is a subtlety about Vondelpark's use of synthesisers which makes this a gentler electronica, one which brings to mind the slow, dark material released in recent years by German labels such as Get Physical Music and Kompakt. Seabed is downtempo and nocturnal but it will also make a great addition to that special collection you reserve for your roughest Sunday mornings.

Like the Amsterdam park from which the band takes its name, Seabed is reclaimed. It draws on a multitude of influences, blending sounds without sounding layered. It will take several listens to fully get inside and this is a rewarding experience - somehow there's a euphoria derived from all this hauntedness. Hit play and see where it takes you.

CJ09/10 Great listening for sunny days and during/after sleepless nights.
Playlist it with:
Art of Noise // Moments in Love
David Kitt // The Big Romance
Elektrochemie // Don't Go EP
Nathan Fake // Drowning in a Sea of Love
Sade // Diamond Life