Shauschka’s Weblog

And whilst we are on the subject of my strange obsessions, the new Guillemots album, Red is out. Nationally, reviews are pretty varied. The Times (like me) loved it. I must point out I don’t normally read The Times, it was a one off: The Guardian is where it’s happening. The BBC music site / reviewer / whatever liked it a bit, but complained that Fyfe Dangerfield (frontman, my hero) was “too quirky”. Off course he’s quirky. He’s a rogue music teacher and alternative musician. There’s a difference between him and what’s his face from Arcade Fire. Fyfe “composes” rather than “writes”. That’s not his words, but mine, everything he or Aristazabal, Magrao or Greig create seems so…finished. Arcade Fire’s music is good, but it sounds like it has been slapped together by a load of Canadians (which is true, it is). Guillemots produce the kind of music that sounds as if it has existed for thousands of years; it has been refined over a good deal of time. Fyfe was once dared to write a song in the time it takes to tune a guitar. He refuse, but he claims to be able to do it in the time it takes to eat a hot dinner.

They play with different genres; they always hark back to a kind of “jazz”, a word which sounds really derogatory, but I can’t think of any other way of classifying it really. It’s like The Mighty Boosh (note: a sort of halucinogenic, musical sitcom in the UK involving talking gorillas and men made of sandpaper) (don’t ask). They have a way of taking a popular musical genre (e.g. NuRave), then mixing it up, mocking it gently, then passing on to something different. And the rip-off music is really well done, I seriously believed their “Underwater Funk” was a cover version. It was written especially for the show, along with the bright pink constumes. I think the Guillemots do the same. They describe their music as “pop on a magic carpet ride”; The Mighty Boosh also involving magic carpets, but they tend to hop between things. From the swing-style Trains To Brazil and sheer size of the Big-Band-esque Sao Paulo (yes, one of them is from Brazil, but not Fyfe, he’s from Birmingham) to the airy alternative Over The Stairs (think: a strange combination of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and crystal-meth, plus a bit of wailing). By some strange fortune they have managed to create a modern 1980s album full of all the sorts of things you would find lying about in that peculiar transitional period. I say strange fortune because of a sudden 80s revival here in the UK; probably of the back of time travel sequel Ashes to Ashes, about a modern police psycological profiler trapped in her own mind in a construct of 1981. Rumour has it that sales of blue mascara has rocketed, along with off-the-shoulder blouses. And amongst all this comes Big Dog (my God, he has actually had a go at R+B), Clarion (Studio Ghibli in audio form) Last Kiss (KT Tunstall singing Girls Aloud) and Cockateels (disco / Las Vegas showtune, along with show girls). And all of it slightly mocked, but done lovingly. It will make you laugh (thank goodness I’ve got imaginary creatures, they don’t get in fights), it will make you weep (please don’t leave me, you’re all I’ve got, believe me, stay…, don’t close your eyes, nobody really dies, they all just end up in the sky, so far away…) and just generally smile at some wonderful melodies.

Despite what any other reviewer might think, quirky is cool, Fyfe can get into falsetto, Arista is amazingly good looking (apparently she knows the exact frequency that will give a woman an orgasm, but refuses to tell anyone what it is. Fyfe thinks it is F#) and the album is

* * * * * and that’s a rating, not a swear word.