REVIEW: Jonathan Boulet - We Keep The Beat, Found The Sound, See The Need, Start The Heart

*Originally published for the Oxford Music Blog (1/10/12)

"Oh my god, you’re dead, oh my god, you’re not dead"/"It’s all real, you’re a fake.”

These are just a few of the paradoxical lyrics etched into multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Boulet’s sophomore effort, We Keep The Beat, Found The Sound, See The Need, Start The Heart, which paint pictures of a somewhat troubled 24-year-old. But the fickle nature of Boulet’s lyrics is unfalteringly swamped with vibrant tribal percussion and choral chants that actually work to juxtapose Boulet’s oft-melancholic stories. This to-ing and fro-ing between bright music and heavy wordplay immediately presents something a bit different and perhaps worth lending your ears to.

Opener ‘You’re A Animal’ (Boulet’s grammar) acts as a one-song montage for the entire album. Ferocious primal drums, dissonant brass and cock-sure power chords make a premature statement that this album is all about relentless ENERGY. 

Not one to hush for long, Boulet leads us straight from the plummeting, ‘You’re A Animal’, into the startling marimba-pop of ‘This Song Is Called Ragged.’ Excusing the incorrect musical ethnicity, but imagine an Indonesian gamelan on steroids and you’re there. Attention has clearly been paid to penning the vast, unyielding rhythm section; it seems Boulet has hardcore in his blood or a similar high-energy rock genre.

The first few songs on the record stage a tedious saga of pounding drums, but ‘Dread Is This Place’ and ‘Hallowed Hag’ offer much deeper, and different, textures. ‘Dread Is This Place’ goes all Animal Collective with soaring multi-layered harmonies and mashed-up psychedelic melodies, but ‘Hallowed Hag’ one-ups it with goose bump-inducing melodies, flamenco rhythms and spindly guitar chords that crawl over Boulet’s rasping vocals.

‘Mangle Trang’ and ‘FM AM CB TV’ are strong examples of Boulet overdoing it on the percussion front, with trigger-sharp drums spewing all over melodies that would have, at the very most, benefited from light rhythms. Chamber-pop melodies lie at the heart of ‘Piao Voca Slung’ and album-closer ‘Cent Voix’, which thankfully deviate from Boulet’s obsession with crashes, bangs and wallops. Unfortunately, the former doesn’t promise a complete recess from drilling percussion, but he clearly is a rhythms man and lets that remain at the centre of his songwriting.

We Keep The Beat, Found The Sound, See The Need, Start The Heart is sometimes wonderful and sometimes not. Wisps of ingenuity flutter about the songs’ surfaces, penetrating intermittently into deeper, emotional depths.  The clattering of drums, however, is always thumping at the back of your head, and regardless of the Boulet’s remarkable musical talent, you begin to get a bit of a headache.

REVIEW: Die Hard - 'Die Hard'

*Originally published for the Oxford Music Blog(10/2/12)

In a world of ever-merging musical genres, the inevitable results are the fusing of sounds that do and do not work together. Moreover, a band/artist’s identity may become blurred or enhanced in consequence of garnering such different sounds. Unfortunately for music writers, Glasgow’s Die Hard do not fit nicely into any of these boxes. Their experimental debut LP is at once remarkable as it is perplexing, comforting as it is disturbing. The band’s identity and their musical magnetism comes and goes.

‘In The Garden’ and ‘Here Goes The Rage’ strongly illustrate this dichotomy. An exciting, high-pitched whir akin to a surfer-rock tannerin opens the former track, before disfigured strings and dark European synths converge in bizarre fashion. The devilish, pitch-bent repetitions of “in the garden” evoke Biblical imagery that is soon intercepted by gratuitous, pornographic wails. It isn’t exactly a pleasant listen, but it is unique. A complete u-turn follows with, ‘Here Goes The Rage.’ Crisp, tinny acoustics and dazzling floods of “here goes the rage again” circle around Celtic whistles. It is extremely catchy and very reminiscent of early Biffy, yet at the same time comparisons are rife with Baltimore experimentalists, Animal Collective.

Soon enough, tracks arise that are not so appealing to the ear. The slowed-down, unpredictable trip-hop rhythms and aggravating, industrial bleeps on ‘Mmmm’ make for an interesting composition (an aptly-titled track too, with nasal groans trailing throughout). But aside from this creative musical playfulness, is the track actually any good? I’m not so sure.

It is frustrating that while the LP has its enticing moments, with ‘Here Goes The Rage’ and the attractive psychedelia of ‘Nailed To The Cross’, it never quite satiates. The mutated sounds that harvest the record’s gloominess are zapped by marching drum rolls on ‘980c’, but the track’s nascent strings remain bound. The smooth chillwave foundations of ‘See You Later Defibrillator’ are alluring, but never break into the beats you so crave.

The centre-piece of the album, ‘Shiver Through’, is the strongest track. It is a crafted dream with languorous interplay of female and male vocals paralysed by lust and tumbling guitars. Yet lust is, and you are, deserted by the track’s indistinct ending. Even if it is meant to be some kind of extended metaphor for sexual dissatisfaction, it is a vexing, but also an astonishing listen.

At the very last point on the album, Die Hard barrage you with hope. ‘We Said You Might Be Dead’ is a homage to every single choral-group based song ever written. It is as vast as Sub-Saharan plains with its unified, fiery tribal hums, and it is as promising as a Scottish army ready for battle with its stirring, Bagpipe drones. Synths ripple, warped vocals roar and tambourines build. Then it stops.

Die Hard’s eponymous LP will divide listeners as much as it will continue to divide me. The band’s intermittent identity will also continue to baffle. Perhaps it is intentional, but are they forgiven for the give-and-take nature of their music? Yes, because their potential is enormous.

7/10