Screaming Maldinin

SCREAMING MALDINI.

LIFE IN GLORIOUS STEREO.

HIPHIPHIP RECORDS.

REVIEWER – NICK DEL’NERO.

After roughly 30 listens, I remain mildly perturbed by my reaction to ‘Life in Glorious Stereo’, the new single by Screaming Maldini. As someone who is largely repulsed by any music that lies within the indie-electro-pop spectrum, I totally expected to be blinded by my own pre-moulded hateful opinions and deep bias while dissecting this EP. However, electrified by tightly arranged vocal harmonies, ‘Life in Glorious Stereo’ is a slickly produced wedge of electro-pop.

There's pretty much every instrument going thrown into this track. Trumpets, synths, snappy guitars, insane amounts of percussion and perfectly placed handclaps pave the way, resulting in a mix that punches through like a reinforced orchestral breeze block. Impressively though, the producers and songwriters have managed to roll all these instruments together intelligently enough to stop me feeling fatefully nauseous. Very tastefully done.

Rather than leaning on generic harmonic structures, the songwriters take considerable risks, sliding melodies through clinically engineered modulations from the outset. Combining this with adventurous orchestration, the band elevate their material well above the doldrums of standardised indie garbage and create something much more interesting.

I’m a music snob and a big hater in general. But I just couldn’t help but like it. A lot.

The Big Eyes Family Players and Friends.

FOLK SONGS II.

STATIC CARAVAN RECORDINGS.

REVIEWER - NICK DEL'NERO.

Folk Songs II is the new album by The Big Eyes Family Players. A perfect example of collaborative endevours, the album features performances from a list of sickeningly talented folk vocalists snatched from across the UK. Each track is built on a musical framework laid down by multi-instrumentalist and composer James Green, whose stylistic fingerprint imbibes each song with a haunted melancholia.

A perfect example of this is ‘Greenland Bound’, the gorgeously eerie opener featuring vocalist Adrian Crowley, who lays melodies over a textured instrumental backdrop. ‘A Man Indeed’ is a tidily arranged re-interpretation of the traditional folk tune. Female leads Mary Hampton and Sharon Kraus perform an intelligent round with a series of flawless interlocking melodic patterns.

In contrast, some tracks deviate from the purely traditional vibe. ‘Looly Looly’ and ‘Stretched on Your Grave’ incorporate some interesting sonic archetypes, with the addition synthesised elements or slightly unconventional instruments which help to keep things interesting. Final track ‘Maureen From Gippursland’ is an inspired folk-noise hybrid driven by the voice of Scotsman Alasdair Roberts. At points the song mutates into folktronica style soundscape, without set rhythms or a solid base. It’s a shimmering blend of percussive madness and listless harmonic beauty.

Overall the album contains some consummate adaptations and displays peerless musicianship. The producers have expertly balanced the feel of the traditional instruments with modern elements, creating something much more inventive than the tired and clichéd recordings of some contemporaries in the field. As lovely as it is, I have a minor gripe about the album. Due to the slightly dreamy, listless arrangements and rhythmically loose performances, some tracks can feel meandering and directionless which can become slightly fatiguing. The majority of the songs are at a fairly slow tempo, so it might be nice to have included a couple of more percussion driven tracks to break up the overall pace of the record.

Whinging aside, anyone with even the vaguest interest in the folk/acoustic scene would be missing out if they didn’t grab a copy of Folk Songs II. The instrumentation is so gorgeous that it’d make an outstanding album without the vocals. Throw in the voices of some of the foremost folk artists in the country, and you have something truly special.