- Release Info -
Artist: UNKLE
Album: Only The Lonely
Label: Surrender All
Playtime: 30:08 min
Genre: Electronic
URL:
Rip date: 2011-04-20
Street date: 2011-04-04
Size: 56.68 MB
Type: Normal
Quality: 250 kbps / 4410Hz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes -
What if James Lavelle made a good album and nobody cared? That was the
question at hand for Where Did the Night Fall, last year's fourth LP from
Lavelle's still-going, mostly forgotten UNKLE project. The record, which saw
Lavelle swapping beats for psych-rock textures and a correspondingly fitting
list of guests (the Black Angels, Autolux, Sleepy Sun), had its share of
mostly highlights. Not that anyone heard them; after all, this is a project
that hit the ground limping with 1998's debut, Psyence Fiction-- a record
remembered mostly for the violent Jonathan Glazer-directed video for the Thom
Yorke-guesting cut "Rabbit in Your Headlights". The resulting decade and
change hasn't been especially kind to UNKLE, so the relative vitality of Where
Did the Night Fall was a nice treat and a surprising turn in Lavelle's
inexplicably lasting career.
Of course, Where Did the Night Fall is an UNKLE album, so it ultimately falls
prone to bloat and murky atmospherics. Ideally, rounding up the LP's
highlights would have made for a very good EP-- a "shorter is better" argument
that's given weight on UNKLE's latest release, Only the Lonely. It could be
assumed that this particular EP rounds up leftovers from the last album (both
do share the same metallic-looking, female-fetishizing type of cover art), but
it's easier to think of it as a companion piece. Partially because the EP and
LP are seeing release as part of a special edition set; also, you don't dare
get Nick Cave to sing on a track and call it a "leftover." Cave opens the EP
with the spectacularly sleazy "Money and Run", which finds him howling Big
Beat truisms over bashed-out drums and scum-filtered guitar. Cave is the
biggest name on this bill, and he's certainly treated as such by being given
the best song, but the other guests are given suitable backing material as
well: the Duke Spirit's Liela Moss shakes off the JAMC-worshipping demons of
her main act and gets gothy on "The Dog Is Black", while vocalist Gavin Clark
gives "Wash the Love Away" a lost-in-a-K-hole anthemic feel.
So Only the Lonely, like its companion, is a success of sorts; that said,
Lavelle is still the one running the show, and his history of unwitting
self-sabotage (see: Mike D's embarrassing verse on Psyence Fiction's "The
Knock (Drums of Death Pt. 2)") continues here. The main issue is that the
production applied to these tracks sounds absolutely torpid-- like a
suffocating, slimy fog that dilutes the songs' more visceral elements or, in
the case of "The Dog Is Black", makes the music sound muddled, dated. What
could be a collection of bombastic, electro-tinged psych songs still somehow
feels stranded in the 1990s-- and, yet, for the first time in, well, forever,
the future is looking brighter for UNKLE. Keep your fingers crossed that
Lavelle doesn't blow it-- but if he does, at least try to act surprised.
Other Notes:
Happy 04-20!
Consult your local drug dealer, this ones on me. Everyone else in the ZONE
please dont and think things thru.
- Track List -
01. Money And Run Feat. Nick Cave ( 5:16)
02. The Dog Is Black Feat. Liela Moss ( 5:04)
03. Only The Lonely (Dub) ( 4:24)
04. Wash The Love Away Feat. Gavin Clark ( 5:13)
05. Sunday Song Feat. Rachel Fannan ( 6:38)
06. Money And Run Feat. Nick Cave (Radio Edit) ( 3:33)
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