Album reviews: Boards of Canada: Inferno |The Coral | Radhika | Autoleisureland
Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin return after a long hiatus with their fifth Boards of Canada album. It’s been worth the wait, writes Fiona Shepherd
Boards of Canada: Inferno (Warp) ★★★★
The Coral: 388 (Run On Records) ★★★★
Radhika: Cine-Pop (Glass Modern) ★★★★
Autoleisureland: New Road Movie (Last Night From Glasgow) ★★★★
Electronica duo Boards of Canada are one of the most revered and enigmatic outfits in Scotland, operating out of their Hexagon Sun studios in the Pentlands since the early 90s. Their 1998 album Music has the Right to Children remains a colossus of the genre, influencing artists from Radiohead to any number of rap acts who have sampled their evocative soundscapes.
Brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin return after a long hiatus with their fifth album, Inferno, mischievously trailed by sending VHS tapes to fans on their mailing list and premiered at a series of global listening events. Clocking in at 70 minutes, it’s an unstintingly scenic trip built on the delicious tones of their amoury of analogue synthesizers.
The lush arpeggios and Tomorrow’s World vibes of Introit quickly give way to a more ominous drone and haunting woodwind. Twanging guitar is folded into the retro-futuristic soundscape of Prophecy at 1420 MHz and Hydrogen Helium Lithium Leviathan takes in a slow, heady warping drone, juddering rhythm and twinkling synths.
Elsewhere, soothing choral vocals and a patchwork of pitchshifted spoken word samples infuse Age of Capricorn and Father and Son, while the likes of Blood in the Labyrinth and All Reason Departs evoke beatific but creepy sci-fi ambience. The meticulous eclecticism continues across the percussive post-rock of Into the Magic Land and space jazz chords of Arena Americanada.
In keeping with their flirtation with all things mystical, Naraka is named after a hellish realm of suffering but its stately analogue synths, reverberating rhythms, shards of guitar and mesmeric melodic prayer samples border on the celestial.
The Coral make their spontaneous return to less fanfare and riddling but the aural returns are every bit as rich on surprise new album 388, named after the old tape machine on which they captured their chemistry with minimal takes. Reconnecting with their roots and each other on a book tour of small towns, these Liverpudlian indie gurus have produced a captivating, unfussy album suffused with the spirit of doo-wop and early Bob Marley singles.
Let The Music Play is sweet, sonorous roots reggae with frontman James Skelly in tremulous lovers rock mode, while the tender soul balladry of Here Come the Tears and Sad Girl hurt so good in a Smokey Robinson kind of way. The group harmony heaven of High Tide is a song made for the sunshine, while You & Me (And The Beautiful Sea) is a masterclass in potent simplicity.
Cine-Pop, the judiciously named debut album by Renfrew-based Radhika, is equally intoxicating and impressive. Like her father (and collaborator) Sushil Dade (of Soup Dragons/BMX Bandits note), she is a lover of a filmic soundscape, dedicating tracks to David Lynch and Lalo Schifrin and evoking the likes of Nancy Sinatra and Jane Birkin on her yearning dream pop.
Former Teenage Fanclub man Gerry Love, Pastels drummer Mitch Mitchell and Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell cameo as her backing vocalists and she pays tribute to classic Scottish pop with a dreamy take on Strawberry Switchblade’s Since Yesterday. But she also taps into her Scots-Indian heritage on folk mantra Tum Hi Ho and showcases her precocious talent on Future Me, the first song she ever wrote.
From Cine-Pop to New Road Movie, the second album of sheer escapist delight from Durham duo Autoleisureland who comprise Kane Gang members David Brewis and Paul Woods. Like their parent band, Northern Morning meets all your 80s sophisto-pop needs with its shimmering synths, husky soulful wistfulness and languorous brass. Almost Light harks back to the 70s in Steely Dan-meets-bubblegum pop style before they pitch forwards to the 90s with the chill-out synth burble of Chemical Beach.
CLASSICAL
Tchaikovsky: Rococo Variations (Naxos) ★★★★
On this disc we have Tchaikovsky’s Mozart-inspired Variations on a Rococo Theme in its original eight-variation form, the one Tchaikovsky first agreed on with its dedicatee, cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, before the latter chose to reorder the movements, even cutting one, to create the version that became the accepted norm. Cellist Gabriel Schwabe and the Sinfonieorchester Aachen under Christopher Ward present the original with revealing conviction in this intriguing new recording. To misquote Eric Morecambe, all the familiar tunes are there, just not in the wrong order. Schwabe’s playing is rich-toned, effortlessly enthralling, Ward’s orchestra neatly receptive. Also featured are Tchaikovsky’s flirtatious Pezzo capriccioso (with original cello part), Nocturne from the Six Morceaux Op 19, and Schwabe’s own arrangements of the Violin Concerto slow movement and delicious Valse sentimentale. Finally, an orchestral curiosity: Tchaikovsky’s second version of the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. The surprise comes at the end. Ken Walton
FOLK
Mairearad Green: Tìm (Buie Records / ECM Records) ★★★★
Tìm – pronounced “cheem” – is Gaelic for time, and this atmospheric album from multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Mairearad Green, composed as an integral element of her exhibition at Ullapool’s An Talla Solais gallery, aims to make us stop and consider time, tide and the natural world around her native Coigach, in which she rejoices. Green’s soft voice is rendered ethereal against her multi-tracked smallpipes, accordion and piano, with Iain Hutchison adding bass, electric guitar, synths and programming. Her songs, some co-written with Jan Kilpatrick, include an affectionate harbour visit in Old Dornie, while Knockan Crag takes a beat-driven dive into geological deep time and the gentle waltz of Painted Lady serenades a butterfly. Two striking instrumentals – Camuscoillie with its smallpipes keening over dark drones, and the pipes, synth wash and ringing piano chords of the stately title track – are indeed the stuff to make time stand still. Jim Gilchrist
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