I’ve never played guitar, so may not be the best person to judge, and I’m generally averse to wild comparatives and superlatives in music reviews. Watching Arbouretum last night, though – it was somewhere in the last quarter of “Song Of The Nile”, to be specific – I started to think that, just maybe, Dave Heumann might be one of the best guitarists I’ve seen play in years. We’ve been here before, of course: this is a link to my piece on Arbouretum’s wonderful recent album, “The Gathering”, which in turn links to some other stuff I’ve written on them, including a review of their 2009 Club Uncut show. For this return visit, the second guitarist has been replaced by a keyboardist, which deprives us of the fearsome Television-style face-offs, and consequently fixes the spotlight with even greater intensity on Heumann. Evidently, he can handle the attention; he’s the solo constant member of this gravitational Baltimore band, after all. Heumann’s solos tend to be intricate and precise freakouts, which operate within narrow margins until – as at that point in “Song Of The Nile” – he leans back and begins to shred. It’s an unflappable-looking virtuosity which drives solos like the straight-up astonishing one in “Waxing Crescents”. For an encore of “Pale Rider Blues”, he tones down the effects a little and comes on like a discreet successor to Jimmy Page. By this point, you suspect he could play just about anything, with the minimum of fuss. Heumann’s bandmates maintain a rigorous, locked-on drone backup for his excursions; in a set built mostly around “Gathering Songs” (“The White Bird”, “When Delivery Comes”, the Jimmy Webb cover, “The Highwayman”), they create a thicker, heavier sound than last time round (the tribal thud of “Waxing Crescents” climaxes, happily, with a drum solo). But to imply that Arbouretum’s songs exist merely as launchpads from which Heumann can embark on one expansive solo after another would be misleading. These are sturdy, thoughtful and resonant songs, rooted in English folk, their elaborate melodic complexities riding mystically over the stoner heft of the rhythm section. It reads like an awkward mix, but as these songs roll out with a heroically dogged, almost motorik momentum, it works superbly. Thanks to Arbouretum for playing, anyhow, and thanks too to Alexander Tucker for his support set: a more restrained and song-based affair (in keeping with his new “Dorwytch” album) than this last Club Uncut showing.

Strange to think that, when the first UK White Denim single turned up, they seemed to be more or less like a garage rock band. I was just re-reading my blog on their UK debut, “Workout Holiday”, and was amused to see some discussion in the comments about their relationship or otherwise with The Hives. Not much chance of that happening nowadays, especially with “D”. “D” is just about the fourth White Denim album in a confusing discography, which has encompassed different releases for the US and UK (“Austin’s Newest Hitmakers!”) and a download only album from last year, “The Last Day Of Summer”, that, embarrassingly, I only found out about last week. “The Last Day Of Summer” signalled a relatively softer, poppier shift in the band’s music, following 2009’s tremendous “Fits”. But while “D” reflects that to some degree (on “Drug”, in particular), White Denim’s modus operandi remains to hybridise radically clashing styles of music at an often bewildering speed. Certain elements and influences are played down this time: there’s less vintage Detroit rock, less Hendrix and Funkadelic. Instead, White Denim have never sounded more like a band from Texas, with an enhanced quotient of southern rock and country, among other things (check the beautiful closing Western Swing baroque of “Keys”, with its prancing steel solo). But at the same time the newly-expanded four-piece have never sounded more modern and experimental. A fair bit of “D”, then, could just about be classified as Southern fried math-rock: the amazing “Burnished” being a case in point, not least when it evolves into the instrumental “At The Farm”, which exists in an elevated jamming space about halfway between The Allman Brothers and The Boredoms circa “Vision Create Newsun”. It’s an amazing trick, facilitated by the loose/intense virtuosity of the players, and it’s one they fire up a few more times as “D” rolls on, culminating in the cycling, syncopated peaks in the second phase of “Bess St” – a song which begins at a manic chug, like some tooled upgrade of the 13th Floor Elevators (if only Roky Erickson had recruited these neighbours as his backing band instead of Okkervil River…). White Denim have been in this space before, briefly, on “Mirrored And Reversed” and, especially, the end section of “Say What You Want”. But “D” is a technical tour de force: “Anvil Everything” even resembles, I’m told, Yes’ “Relayer”, while “River To Consider” begins like a Fania jam, plus jazz flute, and also faintly recalls Stereolab’s “Percolator” (and/or, possibly, their cover of “One Note Samba”). I’m pushed to think, however, of a record where proggish/post-rockish tendencies are handled with such zip and joy, so that it sounds anything but uptight. “Is And Is And Is” starts off as kind of dappled psych, before ramping up into a stadiumish chorus in which James Petralli switches back to the deeper soul-rock bark that used to be his default tone. Soon enough, the systems-like, rippling patterns begin pulsing beneath the melody, so effectively that it seems as if White Denim have found a way to cross anthemic rock and Terry Riley in a way which recalls, but doesn’t exactly copy, The Who around “Baba O’Riley”. It sounds fantastic but, as ever, White Denim never hang around in one place for long. “Keys” lopes in, amiably, to take its place and, too quickly, this exciting, stimulating, quite brilliant album is over. A while ‘til it comes out, I’m afraid, but “Anvil Everything” is on White Denim’s website. Give it a go and report back, if you have a chance?

Sad news reaches us this morning about the death of Elizabeth Taylor, aged 79, from congestive heart failure. It's been a pretty grim year so far, with the passing of actors like Pete Postlethwaite and, last week, Michael Gough. Taylor's death, though, feels like the closing of a specific chapter in movie history. I suppose the fascination the media, and the general public, had with Taylor's relationship with Richard Burton prefigured our own obsession with celebrity culture. Of course, Laurence Olivier's off-screen relationship with Vivien Leigh had been a major pre-occupation for the papers in the 1930s and '40s. But Taylor and Burton seemed emblematic of a more glamorous and unattainable lifestyle; Vogue magazine covers, the 33.19 carat Krupp diamond, yachts, Swiss homes, royal friends. Along with John and Jackie Kennedy, the Burtons were arguably the most famous couple in world. The public interest in their private lives was constant, the media circus was unrelenting. The Burtons' decade long marriage, divorce, remarriage and final divorce gave us "Liz and Dick", the vulgar tabloid shorthand precursor to "Branjelina". But the Burtons seemed, to some extent, happy to channel their private lives onscreen: their initial courtship in Cleopatra (1963), the very public affair in The VIPs (1963), "the battling Burtons" in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? ((1966) and, wryly, The Taming Of The Shrew (1967). Taylor had been a child actress -- Lassie Come Home (1943) and National Velvet (1945). During the 1950s, she began developing a credible body of work -- A Place In The Sun opposite Montgomery Clift, Raintree County (her first Oscar nomination), Giant with James Dean and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman. She started the 1960s well, with a Best Actress Oscar win for Butterfield 8, and then played opposite Burton in Cleopatra. Of course, it's impossible to know, had she not met Burton, where her career would have gone, what kind of work she'd had done, particularly as old Hollywood, of which she was such so emblematic, gave way to the New Hollywood of the Easy Rider generation. Her best work, certainly, was in the 1950s and 1960s; her best film, I'd say, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, a vivid, powerful performance as blousy Martha, barely suppressing the anguish and bitterness of her relationship with her husband, George, played brilliantly by Richard Burton. [youtube]nInE5TITzE8[/youtube]

Last month, I travelled over to Duluth, Minnesota to interview Low for the issue of Uncut that comes out later this week. While I was there, I emailed a couple of questions about the band to Nels Cline (via Wilco’s publicist), who guests on the wonderful new Low album, “C’Mon”. A few days later, I received a very long response from Nels; too long, unfortunately, for me to publish in full in the mag. An edited version runs alongside my feature, but I’m very pleased to reproduce the whole thing here; a really thoughtful and insightful piece which manages to articulate the specific greatness of Low as well as anything I can recall reading. Here it is: “I don't remember when I first heard Low play 'live' - maybe it was at The Troubadour in West Hollywood. But I certainly remember when I first heard them because it was when The Geraldine Fibbers (Carla Bozulich's band) were setting up in Hollywood to record "Butch" in December of 1996. Steve Fisk and John Goodmanson were making that record with us and had just finished recording and mixing "When The Curtain Hits The Cast", the second Low record. Steve Fisk put it on in the control room - pretty loud - to reference the playback system. I think everyone in The Fibbers was already aware of them except for me, the "new guy" (I had officially joined The Fibbers the month before). I was so blown away by the beauty and poignance of the songs and sound, and that feeling of admiration, identification, and awe has never left me. Since then, Carla and I, as Scarnella, did a couple of shows with Low in New York City and Hoboken, and I have heard them 'live' many times. They have seen changes in the bass chair, have even gotten loud. When I joined Wilco in 2004, I was asked which artists I would like to see open for future shows, and Low was on that shortlist. It took a while to happen, but when it did I was asked to sit in with them on a song or two, playing lap steel. What a thrill! Truth be known, I am rather obsessed with Low's sound and style because I hear it as possessing a kind of musical and lyrical economy that is so beautifully voiced sonically and which also has a scalpel-like ability to cut into one's psyche, an incisiveness, sometimes without my understanding why or how this is happening. Sometimes I think it has something to do with my Nordic DNA or something. But I see the subject matter of Low songs - mendacity, doubt, grief, ambivalence, familial love, bitterness, spirituality, your take here - as universal, ultimately. I suppose my favourite Low records are the aforementioned "Curtain", "Trust", "Things We Lost In The Fire", and I feel I must add this new record, "C'mon", to that list. Low records are my travelling companions. Like favourite movies or other works of art, I check in with them occasionally, or they check back in with me, and the texture and timbre of my life is again measured or assessed. The beauty of their music haunts me, at times crushing me with its knife-like acumen, at other times making me drift away on clouds of wistfulness. Fuck, these words are clunky, and I apologise... For anyone interested in Low at all, besides listening to their records, I highly recommend the documentary about them from a couple of years ago. I lent it to someone a while ago after I watched it, but I think it's called "Murderer" (after one of Low's most hauntingly beautiful and leading songs). It is amazingly revealing. Like Low's music, it traverses a region between lush and stark with a deft hand. Since my becoming aware of Low, I have watched as Alan has started other projects, both of which seemed to address a burning need to "rock out", to make a racket, be immersed in a mushroom cloud of rhythm and guitar, to really cut loose. I actually have sat in briefly with both The Black-Eyed Snakes and with The Retribution Gospel Choir and witnessed/felt the music, watched Alan go for it, heard his beautiful guitar sound in modes both subtle and strangulated. With records like "The Great Destroyer", Low had surges of volume on brilliant songs like "Pissing" and "When I Go Deaf". That aesthetic, minus the Dave Fridmann compressed layers of distortion, is evident on this new record, "C'mon", but is more like a Phil Spector "Wall Of Sound". I believe Alan said they recorded "C'mon" in the church they often play in (where they did "Trust" with Tchad Blake), and it sounds deep and beautiful. Producer Matt Beckley has made this record sound appropriately dramatic, and the big tom-tom explosions (heard in another guise on the last RGC album - Alan likes big booms!), strings, and layered voices make "C'mon" , again, both lush and stark. Classic Low, yet new/expanded Low. Growth! Just listen to "You See Everything", with the lilting 6/8 and amazing harmonies and you'll hear some very new Low sounds... The combination of Alan and Mimi's voices - each individually beautiful in its own right - is one of the great sounds in music, to my mind. Always beautifully voiced and usually subtly expressive/restrained, their voices are like light to me, shining on some very (at times) dark matters. At their best, transcendent.... I was asked in the 11th hour to overdub some guitar on 2 songs ("Done" and "Nothing But Heart") while Alan and Matt Beckley were mixing in Matt's apartment in Studio City, CA. It was one of those amazing scheduling miracles; I happened to be in L.A. for 4 days, and could just squeeze in the session. Alan seemed truly pleased with what they had achieved, and as I listened to tracks I was really blown away by the huge sound. There was chuckling about the reaction of "slow core" diehards. But now that I have heard the whole album, I would have to say that I think it fits right into the trajectory of the band and consequently should not be shocking or dauntingly different. The music is more "band'-sounding than "Drums & Guns", as varied as their later albums. As stringent, too. But what was once an almost claustrophobia-inducing use of distortion/compression here gives way to something symphonic. I do not mean to be reviewing the record! I am just ruminating... Tracking my lap steel, slide, and "lead" guitar took maybe two hours. Half the "session" was taken up with eating splendid Mexican food and (for me) drinking Mexican Coca-Cola. For bottleneck on "Nothing But Heart", I used some guitar of Matt's because my Jazzmaster's action was too low from being bashed around on the road. I was a bit amused by this song: one basic lyric followed by an endlessly repeated chorus, not in some ways unlike "Hey Jude" with its building repetition and direct simplicity. Upon listening to the results, I am amazed how loud I am in the mixes! And I am so pleased - not to be mixed loud, but to be on a Low record. They are, to me, one of the greatest sounds in the universe.”

It may be a touch rash to suggest that Oneohtrix Point Never are challenging, say, Lady Gaga for influence and ubiquity all of a sudden. Nevertheless, more and more psychedelic records I’m sent seem to follow levitational synth patterns rather than more rockist jams, and there’s even been a few weird instances of PRs dropping the Oneohtrix name as an eyecatching influence, when the actual music sounds nothing like him (last week: a very lame pop-dubstep thing with faint ethereal trim). There are worse trends, of course, and a fair bit of the new kosmische music that comes this way is good: the new Rene Hell album, “The Terminal Symphony”, is a pretty nice case in point which arrived last week, and I note with interest there’s some Mego/Emeralds activity with a new Mark McGuire comp and a spin-off label that looks intriguing. One thing that bugs me, though, is how relatively little love Mountains seem to receive in the midst of all this, when I sometimes think that the records they’ve been making these past few years – the last ‘proper’ album, “Choral”, the brilliant “Etching” jam and, most recently, Koen Holtkamp’s solo “Gravity/Bees” – have been as good as anything from this apparent scene. And certainly, as a track like “Thousand Square” or “Sequel” starts up on this new Mountains album, “Air Museum”, you can easily draw certain cosmic affinities. As they progress, however, the very specific pleasures of Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg’s music become more and more pronounced. In the pieces linked above about their previous work (and especially in this live review from a 2009 Club Uncut show), I’ve touched on the way their soundscapes are constructed out of acoustic loops and samples, as well as electronic work, giving their music a more organic feel than the glistening ‘80s futurism affected by some of their contemporaries (perhaps this improvising, textured approach deters some synth puritans?) . That’s the case on “Air Museums”; warm, expansive, exquisitely micro-detailed, and developed now to such a point of confidence and artfulness that the usual ‘70s German reference points I’ve rolled out in the past seem much less salient – though it’s mighty hard not to drop an obligatory Cluster one when the bobbling “Backwards Crossover” hoves into view. The folksy acoustic guitars which have picked their way through some of Mountains’ music in the past don’t appear this time, at least overtly. There’s a lot of talk in the press release about the duo’s methodology, and about how “Air Museum” was made without computers, using, let me quote, “a variety of pedals, modular synths, and other analog techniques.” There are plenty of acoustic instruments on here, it continues, including cellos and accordions as well as pianos and guitars, but the processing is so intense that it’s hard to pick out specific sounds amidst a staticky wash like “Newsprint” or the final concert extract, “Live At The Triple Door”. On the new Tim Hecker album, “Ravedeath 72”, you can often identify the central instrument as a pipe organ amidst all the swirl and blurring. Here, though, the organic vibes come through via ambience and implied detail, to create a fastidiously crafted and immersive music, and one that reveals new layers every time I play it. Mention of Club Uncut earlier reminds me, by the way, that a couple of Mountains’ labelmates are playing for us this Thursday (March 21) in London. Arbouretum and Alexander Tucker are playing the Borderline, and tickets are still available here. Please come down if you’re in town.