LCD Soundsystem - 45:33 (2006)

1) 45:33 (Pt.1); 2) 45:33 (Pt.2); 3) 45:33 (Pt.3); 4) 45:33 (Pt.4); 5) 45:33 (Pt.5); 6) 45:33 (Pt.6) Bonus tracks 7) Freak Out / Starry Eyes; 8) North American Scum (Onanistic Dub); 9) Hippie Priest Bum-Out

Murphy and co get to make a LCD long-form dance jam without any constrictions or inhibitions.

Key tracks: If you want to split the main song, parts two and three.

James Murphy was explicitly commissioned by Nike to create 45:33, but he likely had something like this in his mind regardless and getting asked to do so was just a fortunate twist of fate. Ostensibly designed for a jogging promotion campaign, Murphy got to indulge in his dream of creating a single, album-length song and the true nature of 45:33 is in fact to be the most uncompromised incarnation of the standard long-form LCD Soundsystem jam track - this time running for nearly 46 minutes. Mostly focused on rhythm and groove and sustaining the energy for as long as possible, 45:33 is the dancefloor jam to end all jams - and just to make it clear, this is probably the purest indie disco soundtrack filler that Murphy has ever released, all four-to-the-floor and none of the introspective lyrics.

Whether coincidental or not, the six untitled parts which make up the complete composition vaguely follow the form of a standard exercise routine. Part 1 is little more than a gentle warm-up intro, parts 2 to 4 make up the body of the work-out, 5 is the last intense push and the final part is the wind-down. The part splits aren't particularly precise and in some formats it doesn't exist to begin with (instead served as one long 46-minute piece), but cutting this into chunks was never the intention either way; 45:33 is intended to be a singular session and its various sections exist solely in context with one another rather than to stand out individually. The only real exception to that is part 3 and that's completely retrospective in nature: Murphy repurposed the particular section into "Someone Great" from Sound of Silver, and because of that familiarity it now sticks out from the rest of the composition here, like it's unintentionally gatecrashing a party it wasn't aware of. For the most parts though, all the parts are built on the same ideas: mechanically precise drum hits, groove-driven bass, the occasional odd vocal sample (from Murphy or one of his friends - the second part's "shame on you!" being a particular favourite) and lush but carefully concentrated additional keyboard and synth accompaniments, served in varying tempos. While varied, once you've heard the first section you have a rough idea where the rest of it's going to go, even if there are a few minor swerves in the way.

Regardless, purely from a compositional standpoint 45:33 succeeds remarkably, in that Murphy has managed to build a long-form song that holds up together for its entire duration. While there aren't any central melodies or leitmotifs that spring throughout, each part builds on from the previous one, taking its core and spinning it into another route, and the end part of that route is then transformed by the next section; while the sections therefore are ultimately 'individual', they share so much of the same DNA throughout that you get that they're part of the same song. And perhaps the only reason I notice these sections so clearly is because I happen to own this on a format that marks them separately - maybe if I had this as a single track, I wouldn't pay so much attention to this? Still, some of the indicated parts work better than others, admittedly: the cool cat lazy funk of Part 2 is a particular favourite, while the athletically energetic 5th part - which is all racing rhythm sections and quick horn stabs - gets a bit too samey already a few minutes in.

All that said, while it all holds up together well this isn't the kind of epic showcase that many other artists' album-length songs are. In the end it's a piece set to accompany a work-out session rather than careful listening, and so its aim is to keep a set pace rather than offer all the things you'd normally find in a LCD Soundsystem release. Its main importance to the greater mythos is that that arranging this arguably helped pave way for Murphy to utilise the tricks learned in his later dancefloor-ready cuts - as an actual song, it's an enjoyable ride but not one that's so striking that it really justifies a 46-minute listening session on its own. It's background music - foot-tapping, head-bopping background music of course, but still something to occupy a space where your focus is on something else. Its impressive in many ways, but not as a song per se.

The CD version also features a handful of Sound of Silver b-sides as bonus tracks (also released separately as the Confuse the Marketplace EP). "Freak Out/Starry Eyes" is another long-form LCD jam: the "Freak Out" half is slow and thick, all deep bass, sultry synths and funk horns, while "Starry Eyes" sounds like a synth remix of the first half. It's fine, but maybe not 12-and-half minute fine, though it's best of the three. The Onanistic Dub remix of "North American Scum" is your average kind of remix, i.e. one that's listenable but where barely any of the original track remains and which goes on for at least five minutes too long. "Hippie Priest Bum-Out" relatively speeds by in comparison to the other two songs, but while it's a nifty little instrumental jam with a particularly involved percussion section, it sounds like a sketch or a demo for something that would be developed further later on. For a completionist it's nice to have the b-sides but what Murphy showcases in the two originals, he's done it better on the actual albums.

Rating: 7/10

Sonic Team - Sonic Adventure 2 Cuts Unleashed: SA2 Vocal Collection (2001)

1) It Doesn't Matter (Theme of Sonic); 2) Escape from the City (for City Escape); 3) Believe in Myself (Theme of Tails); 4) Unknown from M.E. (Theme of Knuckles); 5) Fly in the Freedom (Theme of Rouge); 6) Throw It All Away (Theme of Shadow); 7) E.G.G.M.A.N. (Theme of Eggman); 8) Live & Learn (Main Theme of Sonic Adventure 2); 9-16); Instrumental versions

The vocal themes from the game where the series grew a beard and got more serious. Still cheesy and lovably so, but with a serious focus to the craft. 

Key tracks: "Believe in Myself", "Unknown from M.E.", "Live & Learn"

Sonic Adventure 2 was released on Sonic's 10th birthday and as the anniversary game it aimed to deliver everything in a bolder, more epic way than ever before in the series: including the series' first steps into more serious themes in contrast to the usual Saturday morning cartoon plots. SA2 does a better job of balancing that inherent mismatch than many of the little more misjudged attempts since, and that same balancing act applies to the vocal theme songs that had become a new feature for the series with the first Sonic Adventure game. There is no escape from the inherent cheese in Sonic vocal themes (which is partly the reason why they can be so lovable), and the songs on the Sonic Adventure 2 themes on Cuts Unleashed aren't attempting to fight against it either. Even if these are rock songs about neon-coloured animal characters, they can still try to take themselves seriously within their own world; the source material doesn't have to mean you can't try to say something about the characters.

The three hero side songs (the game splits its length between the good guys and the anti-villains) demonstrate this refined approach pretty well. The songs for Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are all remakes of their themes from the first Sonic Adventure, and where the first game openly and blissfully waded into the cartoon cheese, the versions here buckle up and try to take themselves a little more thematically seriously. "It Doesn't Matter" now has a pop punk pace to it, replacing the original wind-in-hair highway rock and its carefree attitude suits Sonic's character far better. "Believe in Myself" is now an A-grade pop/rock anthem with a fire in its belly, featuring some lush arrangement details that wonderfully underline the song's upbeat ideas. I'm not afraid to admit I have an irrational adoration towards the song, but it's a fantastic representation of the mix of cartoon wholesomeness and genuinely quite excellent hooks that Sonic themes often aim for. It's "Unknown from M.E." that truly takes a leap as a reimagination though. For some reason Sonic Team decided on Sonic Adventure that Knuckles' chosen musical style is hip-hop and his theme in Sonic Adventure has the slight clunkiness of people with no hip-hop past trying to fit that genre into Sonic the Hedgehog; for SA2 the team went all-in and honed down on their approach, smoothed all the rough edges off, and realised how to pull it off the best. The SA2 version of "Unknown from M.E." features slicker rap sections, smooth RnB-flavoured choruses, a fantastic vocal interplay between the leads for the respective sections and a constantly shifting and evolving production that gets increasingly more exciting. Replace the lyrics with something less geeky and all three songs could stand up on their own two feet - a case in point that just because you're doing game themes, it doesn't mean you can't take the craft seriously.

The three dark side songs are all brand new compositions and highlight the expanded genre palette of SA2, where each character was paired up with a distinctive sound for all their levels, and where the themes are a logical follow-up of that. "Fly in the Freedom" is a smoothly floating, jazz-flirting pop tune which is once again an arranger's playground, from its suave guitars to the underlining backing vocals; out of all the songs here, it's the song that's least like what you might stereotypically imagine as game music and it's kinda impressive in its own way. Over on the complete other side, "E.G.G.M.A.N." is a hammy cartoon bad guy anthem and relishing in it: it's by far the most outrageous song of the lot but it's captivating much like a great villain song should, and it's laden with the kind of hooks that keep your foot tapping for days. "Throw It All Away" is the weakest of the lot: its moody techno goes a bit over the top in its attempt to sound dark and edgy, but ultimately its main crime is that it's twice longer than it should be, its couple of good building blocks repeated ad infinitum without much change and in comparison to all the other themes, comes off very one-note. A lot of Shadow's gameplay segments feature songs in a similar style and with vocals to boot, but they all do the same thing better than his actual main theme does.

In addition to the six character songs, the mini-album also features the game's main theme and one of the stage songs. "Live & Learn" has become more or less the definitive vocal theme song of the series and the equivalent of a signature song for Sonic Team's house band Crush 40, and it's really obvious why. It's a fist-pumping anthem loaded with energy, packed with a powerful signature riff, featured Johnny Gioeli's best vocal performance in the Sonic history, and just when you think it's reached its peak, the song shoots out one level higher for the last chorus in a brilliant example of a key note change done right. No Sonic main theme has ever come close to "Live & Learn" and it may as well be the series' main theme for what it's worth. The inclusion of "Escape From the City", the song from Sonic's first stage, is a little random but practically an act of precognition: time has turned the stage into an iconic Sonic moment and simultaneously turned the song itself into one of the series' all-time classics, and so its inclusion feels almost justified here as if Sonic Team anticipated it would become one of the game's big songs. And it is a great song, of course - super-addictive feel-good pop punk with one of the franchise's best choruses. By the end of the album you also have instrumental versions of each song, which aren't really a positive or a negative thing: they help to hear the production details but like most instrumental versions, mainly get shelved after one listen.

I'll share an anecdote. I used to be a fairly massive Sonic fan, but there was a point in time where I had ended up losing touch with the series. Where at one point I had been listening to random Sonic soundtracks on a nearly daily basis, I had also started to become more obsessed with music general and finding myself in love with new bands and artists at an exponential rate, and thus listening to this music and playing these games had fallen off my radar nearly completely. One day, the SA2 version of "Believe in Myself" came up on a music player shuffle and on that very instant, as the song played, every single memory I had of playing the series and listening to the music in my more formative years flooded back into my mind. When I got home, I pulled the game back out of the shelf and started it for the first time in ages and went on to relive through it again - a moment that essentially solidified my love for the series once again (even if I'm hardly the same fanatic today as I was back in the days). Everything on this album is very close to my heart, as ridiculous as these songs can be. You most likely don't feel the same in the slightest should you listen to any of these songs without any connection to the games - you might wonder what exactly I'm rambling about in the paragraphs above. As such, I'm not going to say that you should listen to these songs even if you know nothing about the context; I mean you might get a kick out of them but I'm not going to bet on that. Instead, I'm going to finish this by simply saying that to it me it doesn't matter these are from a game about a blue hedgehog and his friends: there's a meaning here that's long since become something bigger than the source material.

Rating: 9/10

Bright Eyes - A Christmas Album (2002)

1) Away in a Manger; 2) Blue Christmas; 3) Oh Little Town of Bethlehem; 4) God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; 5) The First Noël; 6) Little Drummer Boy; 7) White Christmas; 8) Silent Night; 9) Silver Bells; 10) Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas; 11) The Night Before Christmas

The Christmas record for anyone who lost their presents and who are now drinking mulled wine all by themselves in their cold apartment.

Key tracks: "Blue Christmas", "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" / "The Night Before Christmas"

A lot of people seem to regard this as the world's most depressing Christmas album, or something along those lines; one of my friends memorably described the version of "Little Drummer Boy" as the only Christmas song that's made him want to slit his wrists. But I don't think that's quite the right take for this. No one who wants to make something genuinely sad decides that the best way to go about it is a Christmas album, especially wholly one made out of seasonal classics. Playing festive tunes in minor scales and downbeat tempos isn't something you do just for the sake it it, it's a conscious twisting of the familiar melodies. It might just be my skewed understanding of what sad is (thanks, years of emo white guys with guitars in my CD player) but mopey as it may be, the Bright Eyes Christmas album is hilarious in its wallowing. It sounds like Oberst taking his reputation as a depressing singer/songwriter and deciding to have a laugh with it, by creating a Christmas album so over-the-top in its moodiness it's borderline comedic. I don't know the true story behind the album's creation, but given he included a self-ridiculing fake interview just a few albums back, being a little cheeky about his own sound is par on course by now.

Besides, the sadsack Christmas tunes are only one facet of A Christmas Album. There's a decent amount of variety across the songs here: the electronically buzzing version of "Little Drummer Boy" sounds like a sneak preview of Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" stomps like an angry reindeer, "Blue Christmas" has a lithe country twang to it, "Silver Bells" is a Sufjan Stevens Christmas song before those became a thing. Oberst is also far from the only singer on the album and on some tracks he doesn't say a word, his friends getting the spotlight - unfortunately the album's credits are very vague in terms of direct crediting, but many of the women assisting Oberst with the vocal duties across the album have gentle warm voices, perfect for the ideal cosy Christmas evening. When Oberst and his friends do jump into the black Christmas tree territory, it's pretty good in all honesty. "Silent Night", "The First Noel", "Away in a Manger", etc all work really well with a frown on their face, and as established before, are actually rather entertaining in their melodrama.

It's hard to understand how these could be considered genuinely sad but if you don't find the tongue in the cheek here, there's really little here to savour completely on musical terms alone. It is after all just a brief set of old school evergreens: no matter what you do with them, you're never going to get anything you haven't really heard before. There's no left-field deep cuts or any Bright Eyes originals either, as enticing as an idea of a true Oberst Christmas carol sounds like. That said, the version of "Blue Christmas" is now a mainstay in my Christmas mixtapes because it nails the recipe while having a really solid performance and arrangement behind it: its hint of the blues is present but not without going too far, reaching for that gentle wistfulness that a lot of really good Christmas songs have going on for them. The biggest surprise though, and my actual favourite part of the record, lies right at the end. The stark piano-and-cello version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is honestly beautiful on its own, but it then segues into an orchestrally flaired, comfortingly narrated reading of "The Night Before Christmas". It closes the record in a beautiful and unexpected manner, and it manages to conjure a little magic in as it captures that very special Christmas feeling completely genuinely: it's the Hollywood camera pan-out from Oberst's moody den to the pristinely white winter wonderland outside, snow gently falling to the ground, as the credits roll in.

I get why this can be so divisive, but the whole concept of "early-period Bright Eyes doing a Christmas album" should be a dead giveaway of what's in store, and taking it at face value misses the target entirely. If you're like me and you love both Christmas as well as mopey emo singer/songwriters, this is a delight - it's also a great contrast to so many other indie Christmas albums, which ensures that this gets wheeled out every year (much to the misery of the people I've lived with), especially during the days when all you get is another downpour of rain instead of snow. Plus, it's funny... or I'm just really disjointed myself, either or.

Rating: 7/10

R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now (2011)

1) Discoverer; 2) All the Best; 3) Ūberlin; 4) Oh My Heart; 5) It Happened Today; 6) Every Day Is Yours to Win; 7) Mine Smell Like Honey; 8) Walk It Back; 9) Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter; 10) That Someone Is You; 11) Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I: 12) Blue

For their last hurrah R.E.M. sum up their entire career in 12 songs, interpreted through their recently rejuvenated form. It's both an apt goodbye as well as a little hit and miss.

Key tracks: "All the Best", "Ūberlin", "It Happened Today"

Here it is. After fourteen studio albums and thirty-odd years, R.E.M. present their curtain call. Collapse Into Now wasn't announced as such (the actual news hit roughly six months later), but it was intended to be one: R.E.M. knew it was time for them to bow out and ride the high wave of their autumn years into the sunset. In retrospect it's obvious - the lyrics skirt around the issue in a manner that's so clear in hindsight (I'm looking at you "All the Best" and your lines about showing the kids how to do it one last time), and the band even wave goodbye right there on the front cover. But at the time very few people had any idea that it'd be the case, and Collapse Into Now certainly didn't show any signs of the group stopping. Quite the opposite in fact: it felt like the band were continuing to sail with the new wind of energy that Accelerate had brought over.

Beyond that, Collapse Into Now also sounded like the band didn't want to focus on any one particular idea to go forward with - and so they went with everything. Once again, perhaps in hindsight it was a way to sum up what R.E.M. stood for musically as they were ready to place the final full stop at the end, and so Collapse Into Now goes a little all over the place. It's still firmly centered around the muscular and guitar-heavy direction familiar from the previous set of releases, but every other song they keep splintering away from it in various ways. So much of R.E.M.'s past vibes makes a cameo appearance throughout Collapse Into Now, although reflected by where the band were standing at the present. Even Buck's mandolin makes a return after several records of absence, giving a respectful nod to how it became the band's semi-signature instrument for a time. R.E.M. never were a purely nostalgic band and even when they openly dug up their own past (like with Live at the Olympia) they did it in a way that honoured their present - likewise, the familiar elements here are flashes rather than direct throwbacks. It's R.E.M. of 2011 clearly in the lead, but you can tell where the keyboard-heavy dreamers, acoustic ballads or other sudden sonic textures popping up throughout originate from. 

That variety comes with some inconsistency. For their last record, R.E.M. pull out a first for the band in creating a record that wildly swings from brilliant to awkward from one song to another (or even within the same song), in a manner that goes beyond the intentionally incohesive vibe the song selection has. It's an album that's difficult to build a consensus on, because how could you make up your mind when even the album itself can't. "That Someone Is You" and "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" are irreverent punk fun but border on throwaway, and then they're situated right next to rock anthems as full of life and vigour as "Mine Smell Like Honey" (a chorus so effortlessly soaring it comes out of nowhere) and the self-snarky "All the Best", which put the "kick" in kicking the bucket ("it's just like me to overstay my welcome, bless"). "Every Day Is Yours to Give" tries to be atmospheric but slows things down to a slog with little beyond the surface textures, yet "Oh My Heart" is a genuinely elegant and beautiful plaintive lament, taking its melodies from its direct Accelerate prequel "Houston" but removing the tension surrounding them, allowing the grace of it come to front. For every striking success there's a sudden clumsy step tripping over around the corner.

Within the up-and-down lot there are two rock solid classics which solidly slot into the greater canon, and go a good way in boosting Collapse Into Now's role in the greater whole. "Überlin" is the big one, though it never makes it out to be the case. It's almost dangerously unassuming, keeping things close to the ground and carries itself largely by its simple acoustic riff and steady beat. It conjures an impeccable atmosphere though, conveying getting lost in an urban metropolis and finding amazement from the sheer size of it through a dream-like sway, offering an evocative tone the rest of the album intentionally steers away from. Most of all, it's loaded with killer vocal moments, from the constant interplay between Stipe and Mills to the superbly strong chorus with a great melody and touching bittersweetness, and the little twists and turns that drill into your head (the interjecting "that's astounding!" where you can practically hear the parentheses is my favourite). It's an undeniably signature-like R.E.M. song in how it's grand without ever making itself intentionally so. 

"It Happened Today", meanwhile, is pure catharsis. Its first half doesn't make it out to seem so, admittedly: musically it's a neat throwback to 90s coffee shop alternative but not in such a standout fashion you'd highlight it specifically, and Stipe's lyrics could be seen as another self-deprecating nod to the split but other songs do it better. The big thing here is that Stipe leaves his lead spot halfway through to the song, and that's where the tune lifts off: a group of wordless vocal harmonies layer one on top of another, filling the song with counter-melodies and vocal tones and giving it wings, the music shooting off accordingly. The initial light touch turns out to be a build-up for something greater, and for that second half it's a song of pure jubilation - a hint of bittersweet ache haunting in the background, but drowned by the sheer power of a number of voices shouting into the skies in unison. It's a Moment. 

There's a lot of those Moments throughout Collapse Into Now, and it's amusing that in an album which frequently changes its tone so obviously from song to song, it's the small moments that really stand out instead of the great sound switches themselves. Even in its weaker moments, something inevitably jumps out: e.g. with "Every Day Is Yours to Give" it's that small bridge after the second chorus where the beat intensifies and carries the vocal melody for a short while. Some are big like the stand-out chorus of "Mine Smell Like Honey", others fleeting such as the beautiful string part of "Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando & I" (which is otherwise a perfectly serviceable mood moment but nothing too excellent) or the moment the guitar melody emboldens and begins to carry the verses properly in the pretty but inessential "Walk It Back". Even "That Someone Is You", in all its throw-away nature, gets its own moment when Mike Mills shouts "You! You! You! You!" repeatedly, which is simultaneously hilarious, stupid and hilariously stupid fun. There's at least something in every single song, even when the rest of the tune falls short, and that keeps the album running and adds to its hodgepodge feel.

The overall way that Collapse Into Now's stop-start flow is constantly throwing one off the wheels is fun in a way, and it's certainly a stubbornly playful way for the band to refuse the listener a tragic end: Collapse Into Now honestly doesn't sound like the last album from an iconic band, it's too irreverent for that. No sad tears, no dramatic goodbyes, and most of the time the subject is vaguely touched upon the band actively ridicule themselves for staying together this long. The actual finale, the very last song on the very last R.E.M. album, plays around with the idea too. "Blue" is a heavily textured, almost discordant spoken word piece featuring Patti Smith's haunting wailing (which in itself is another flashback to the past), and it could almost pass as the final end of a sentence if left as is. But then after a brief moment of feedback, it kicks into a reprise of "Discoverer", the thunderous (and great) stadium call the whole record started with, and the album loops unto itself, the finale just going back to the start all over again. It absolutely works: it's a fantastic in-album throwback and one of those big Moments you'll take away from the album, simply because how smoothly "Blue"'s chaos transitions to the fist-pumping clarity of "Discoverer", with the latter giving the former its own closure. It's also another cheeky way for R.E.M. to not go down the way you'd have expected. They've delivered the perfect way to end an album that only serves the record itself; it doesn't matter that it's the last time they'll ever deliver one and the slot practically begged for a career-wide statement. 

That attitude, which is honestly charming, certainly doesn't excuse Collapse Into Now's flaws, and it certainly has them - it's far from the upper echelon's of R.E.M.'s discography with its varying quality of songwriting and it's maybe a little disappointing that I have to say that about their last ride. And yet it still stands out, makes a fuss and refuses to simply fizzle out into nothing: flawed or not, there's much to remember within it, even if sometimes it's just a short moment of brilliance within something else. It is maybe most of all a fun album, even with its occasional somber moment. For the album's creation they largely got together in the studio to play absolutely anything they wanted with little greater plan or consideration for any next steps; from the beginning they chose not to even think about touring the album. As such, it's charmingly casual. By intentionally stepping away from the shocker news that would follow it, it gives way for a genuinely natural ending: friends playing whatever they wanted together in a room, just like how it all started back in the day. Warts and all, it's a graceful bow-out to a long career.

Rating: 7/10

John Frusciante - Enclosure (2014)

1) Shining Desert; 2) Sleep; 3) Run; 4) Stage; 5) Fanfare; 6) Cinch; 7) Zone; 8) Crowded; 9) Excuses

Frusciante nearly masters his new electronic sound finally, but sadly doesn't quite deliver on the actual song front.

Key tracks: "Sleep", "Fanfare"

When John Frusciante first announced his electronic reinvention, he posted a public letter describing his vision, the sound he aimed for and the ways he'd reach it. The releases that followed weren't quite there: for all the good parts, the EPs and album following the release all sounded like public practice sessions, to various degrees of success. They featured Frusciante bouncing around ideas, testing out new production methods and stretching his songwriting style to meet these new guises. After all that practice, Enclosure comes close to reaching that goal; for the first time, the music Frusciante's producing sounds like it's fully in sync with his vision.

The reason for this is that if the experiments of the prior releases had the uncomfortable habit of slipping into borderline amateurish execution occasionally, on Enclosure Frusciante has figured out the formula of how to marry his new sound with the way of writing songs he's comfortable with. While Enclosure retains some of the quirks of the past few releases, it sounds consistent and thought-out, instead of just him recording and releasing any odd idea he's halfway done tinkering with. Even the actual lyric sheets are back: there's just a single instrumental among the songs ("Cinch") and everything else is atypically wordy for this period of Frusciante, although his lyrics have started to become increasingly more obtuse and resembling a word salad, and in places they get downright questionable ("I'm in the zone, nigga" is one dubious way for a white guy to open a song). Enclosure has a clear intent behind it, like an actual album rather than a collection of takes.

Musically, Enclosure is an album of little extremes. On one hand, I do appreciate a lot of what Frusciante does here sonically: some of the synth sounds he's picked are particularly delicious, veering towards lo-fi analogue vibes with a particularly atmospheric touch, almost reminiscent of old game score sound sets. It's the kind of album that makes you appreciate very particular sounds, and it works particularly well with a good set of headphones when you can pick those apart. But then, Frusciante hasn't quite shaked off the weakest parts of the prior albums. He's still obsessed about drum loops and switching between them on a fly, at worst nearly every ten seconds. For the most part Enclosure isn't quite as bad about it compared to some of the previous works and some of the tonal and tempo switches are actually decently executed. The drums for the large part don't sound quite as out of place either, but sometimes it all comes tumbling down - e.g. the acid house drums of "Stage" actively distract from the rest of the song and become its sole, jarring focus. On a couple of occasions the entire production aesthetic starts to falter, in particular on "Run" which sounds like a demo version of the boss theme to some late 90s video game. It's not as cool as it sounds; it's a lapse in judgement after the album had started so promisingly, through the moody buildup of "Shining Desert" and the following "Sleep" where those ever-changing drum loops actually really work for the first time.

For the most part though, the extremes of Enclosure meet to create acceptable averageness. I'm glad Frusciante's gone back to making songs rather than sound tests, and I enjoy the ones on Enclosure, but they're far, far away from his most memorable work - and a lot of the time a fair distance away from being properly memorable to begin with. There's a single song I'd place anywhere near a Frusciante essentials list and that's "Fanfare", a moody anthem of sorts where the production tricks (and especially the drums) calm down from the way of a solid core melody and an underlining, evocative tone with a little bit more oomph than anything else here: it sounds like a classic kind of Frusciante song, just with a new set of clothing on it. But while the majority of the rest please in terms of their production and mood, they're deceptively weak as actual songs. Frusciante rambles his litanies, occasionally stumbles across a good melody and then buries it away. There's nothing to take forward, bar the thought that something at some point sounded good but you can't quite remember how it goes. Some songs get close, particularly "Sleep" that has liveliness and fire that's anything but its namesake, as well as "Zone" which oversteps its clunky start with its near-anthemic rise on its latter half. Frusciante can still do some strong melodies, he just also knows how to brush them away just as quick.

Maybe Frusciante himself realised that in some level as well. After another prolific handful of years, Enclosure has the distinction of closing another particularly prolific era for Frusciante, and beginning a long hiatus. Following its release, we wouldn't hear back from him again properly for a while: he released some material under the Trickfinger alias and cleared out the archives with a couple of compilations of unreleased sketches and demo material available for download, and then disappeared largely off the record; even the second Trickfinger album published some time after was just a collection of outtakes from the first record. Later on he'd publicly state that he was content with just making music for himself, with no wider audience releases in mind. At the time of writing this review, in 2019, Enclosure is the last real album Frusciante's released and there has been no sign of another coming anytime soon. Sadly, for being an album that sounds like a culmination of the work that came before it and potentially the last thing we'll hear in a very long time, it ends the era by uneventfully fizzling out.

Rating: 5/10

R.E.M. - Live at the Olympia (2009)

CD1: 1) Living Well Is the Best Revenge; 2) Second Guessing; 3) Letter Never Sent; 4) Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance; 5) Disturbance at the Heron House; 6) Mr. Richards; 7) Houston; 8) New Test Leper; 9) Cuyahoga; 10) Electrolite; 11) Man-Sized Wreath; 12) So. Central Rain; 13) On the Fly; 14) Maps and Legends; 15) Sitting Still; 16) Driver 8; 17) Horse to Water; 18) I'm Gonna DJ; 19) Circus Envy; 20) These Days
CD2: 1) Drive; 2) Feeling Gravity's Pull; 3) Until the Day Is Done; 4) Accelerate; 5) Auctioneer (Another Engine); 6) Little America; 7) 1,000,000; 8) Disguised; 9) The Worst Joke Ever; 10) Welcome to the Occupation; 11) Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars); 12) Harborcoat; 13) Wolves, Lower; 14) I've Been High; 15) Kohoutek; 16) West of the Fields; 17) Pretty Persuasion; 18) Romance; 19) Gardening at Night

We never got a proper, stand-alone live album from the early days but this'll do just as well. Nostalgia tripping, but with purpose and passion. 

Key tracks: Who could choose! And it's all really great anyway. May as well link to "Harborcoat" on the account there's a decent video of it.

"This is not a show". R.E.M. were very clear about pointing out the difference when hosting a five-night residency in Dublin's Olympia Theatre in 2007. It started out as an idea to quickly road test the new songs the band had been writing (most of which would see the light of day on the following year's Accelerate) in front of a small live audience, ironing out the bugs before heading to the studio. The idea soon turned into a full-on public practice session as the band wheeled out songs they had not played in decades, de-rusting them on the spot, while learning and rearranging their new material on a daily basis. The fans had a rare chance to get an intimate glimpse of their favourite band like they hadn't before - sharing their practice space. 

The band certainly felt at ease, despite the strange situation they had thrown themselves in. There's a marked difference between Live at the Olympia and the previous live album, 2007's Live, which featured a stadium band playing their hits like professionals working a shift. Live at the Olympia couldn't be any more different. Everyone's relaxed and loving it, trading comments back and forth between songs they're clearly having a great time with, with Stipe frequently breaking into entertaining, lengthy banter (most memorably when he addresses some ancient lyrics he's had to rely on the internet's interpretations on). The idea that this is a practice run is proven with a couple of mistakes left on tape, but they're more charming than anything, certainly when Stipe struggles to get back into the flow while stifling his own laughter. It's not just an atypical concert for the band, but it's not the kind of show you'd often think to record for a live release. The off-beatness makes it memorable though: a step beyond an intimate setting into a camaraderie-like relationship with the listener, smiling with the band like they're right there. It's a fun record, in ways you'd rarely come to expect from a live album.

The setlist is another big difference to the usual R.E.M. live footage. A good chunk of the band's lifetime from the 90s onward is passed by with barely a nod, and that includes all the big hits - no "Losing My Religion", no "Everybody Hurts", no "Imitation of Life", closest there is is "Drive". The main emphasis instead is on the 80s and specifically the band's years on the IRS label, which makes up the dominating majority of the 39 songs. Even then, they dodge the obvious big ones like "It's the End of the World" and in their place bring out an eclectic mix of fan favourite deep cuts, the band's own pet likes that haven't witnessed the light of day in decades and a few complete left-field obscurities (who even remembered that the rare soundtrack cut "Romance" existed in the first place?). Somehow the decades of difference have made them sound even more energetic than they did before: everyone is clearly loving the chance to blow the dust off these songs, like they're seeing old friends for the first time in forever, and the band inject an incredible amount of sheer force into each track. R.E.M. and their cohorts are on downright incredible form here, and any notion that this would just be a nostalgia-fest goes away fairly quickly just on the strength of the performance alone.

The select few songs from beyond the 80s are there to compliment the other songs, whether in sound (the guitar-crunchy "Circus Envy") or tone (the jovial mood of "Electrolite"). The always-incredible "New Test Leper" is the closest to an obvious selection on the entire album and it further reassures its place as one of the most quintessential R.E.M. songs that brings together the band's various facets, and here it's almost akin to a bridge between the eras. "I've Been High" is the most surprising inclusion and quickly becomes one of the highlights: the Reveal synth-ballad got a few stage reinventions during the band's autumn years and the gorgeous alt-country-esque take here is among the greatest. "The Worst Joke Ever" is presented like to prove a point, because when moved away from the overproduction of Around the Sun the strength of the actual song is allowed to shine, and it slots comfortably beside the rest of the back catalogue presented.

On the flipside of the all the golden oldies are the brand new soon-to-be Accelerate cuts scattered throughout, which have for the most parts already found their general shape save a few small arrangement details. The biggest difference is with "Superserious Supernatural", here still titled "Disguised" to emphasise how work-in-progress the song was as it apparently evolved across all five nights - the final night's version here still has a few major differences to the original (the choruses would eventually become the final bridge and the ending is completely different) and it's clearly not quite there yet, but it's an interesting alternative version. The other Accelerate songs largely also come across as well as they do on the actual album; their more naturally straightforward sound and the shared producer between the two albums makes them sound like slightly alternative takes. They're comfortable companions to the IRS songs: with Accelerate's origin being with the band bringing back their old, unused song drafts, there's a direct line you can trace between them and even the earliest material performed here.

The big fan bait are the two songs exclusive to this record: Accelerate candidates that didn't quite make the grade. "On the Fly" is a pretty torchsong that Stipe pegs down as his early favourite, its wailing guitars and atmospheric keyboards hitting heavy with melancholy. "Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance" on the other hand has Accelerate's signature rock kick to it through and through, and somehow makes its clunky title into an efficient enough vocal hook. Neither of them are anything too exciting, unfortunately: "On the Fly" drags for a little too long while failing to hit the emotional cues it goes for, and "Barrel" comes across as a lesser version of all the other new songs that bear its style. If the two songs prove anything it's that R.E.M. generally have a good judgment on the material they take to the studio: nonetheless, for any big-time fan they're two nice curios to enjoy.

The whole angle of Live at the Olympia points to a curio release overall: the haphazard nature of the gig and the hit-dodging setlist choices mark this one as clearly for the biggest of fans, more so than your average live release. To just file it under that niche category does it a disservice though. Chronologically this is the beginning of the all-out rock and roll direction R.E.M. headed for their last stretch, and it doubles up as both a prologue and a mission overview. The pure energy that flows through the set is genuinely thrilling and engaging, and even though the anniversary re-releases have now brought forward more live material from the actual 80s, hearing R.E.M. revisit their oldest material with the seasoned grip of skillful veterans is a genuine treat (and this is coming from someone who thinks the band's peak golden years started in the 90s). Or to put it this way: it's a live album where I feel excited when listening to it, like I'm genuinely present in the moment and sharing it with the band themselves. There's a lot of R.E.M. live material out there these days and while a lot of it is important in its own way, Live at the Olympia is arguably one the more essential of the lot: even with the intentionally restricted set list, it does an incredible job in highlighting how strong they were on stage.

Rating: 8/10

John Frusciante - Outsides EP (2013)

1) Same; 2) Breathiac; 3) Shelf

Three tracks worth of Frusciante tinkering with his music programs and little else. 

Key tracks: "Same"

Calling Outsides an EP in the greater sense of being a bite-size cohesive body of work is a bit of a misnomer. It's more of a single with two b-sides, except the single is a 10-minute experimental cut.

That song, "Same", is a 10½ minute guitar solo backed by a short drum loop, which Frusciante chops up and repurposes and rearranges throughout those ten minutes in a variety of ways. The solo is merely an excuse for him to test loop manipulation and the song doesn't particularly grow or intensify during its length, but still morphs restlessly as the same beats switch shapes. It's the best song overall on the EP, genuinely good even, but after the first 6-7 minutes it's said everything has to say and the rest is simply made for zoning out if you're in that kind of mood. And it's certainly better than its "b-sides". "Breathiac" is a pile of noise and the worst thing Frusciante has committed on record since the 90s drug days finished - it's a mishmash of dissonant sound with no reason or rhyme, and it's hard to really think what Frusciante aimed to do with it. "Shelf" doesn't begin any better and is initially just a half-brained sound collage, but towards the end an actual song begins to emerge and the final couple of minutes actually get genuinely good, offering exactly the kind of artsy synth pop John promised back when he first announced going electronic. 

The common thread between the three songs is the sound of Frusciante moving further with electronic sound, somewhere more abstract and, at least within his own scope, boundary-breaking. The crux is that they're experiments first, songs second if even considered at all. Outsides is for Frusciante first and foremost, and I can't help but think that the sole reason why there's an official release of this for a wider audience is more to do with the label than Frusciante having a particular artistic itch to scratch. It has its enjoyable parts but none of it feels like it has any impact, whereas Frusciante's prior EPs at least had some element that might bring you back to it later. Outsides isn't a weak release as much as it is forgettable; the sort of thing that even a big time fan could foresee themselves giving a pass.

Rating: 5/10

LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem (2005)

CD1: 1) Daft Punk Is Playing at My House; 2) Too Much Love; 3) Tribulations; 4) Movement; 5) Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up; 6) On Repeat; 7) Thrills; 8) Disco Infiltrator; 9) Great Release
CD2: 1) Losing My Edge; 2) Beat Connection; 3) Give It Up; 4) Tired; 5) Yeah (Crass Version); 6) Yeah (Pretentious Version); 6) Yr City's a Sucker (Full Version)

A slightly slapdash establishment of the basics of James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem, and some essential non-album singles bundled together to both support and carry the official debut.

Key tracks: "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House", "Tribulations", "Losing My Edge"

Much like Murphy's self-cultivated image as the guy who's slept in the same suit for a full weekend, the self-titled debut for LCD Soundsystem is stylishly unkempt. Murphy was a producer, a DJ and a label head who found himself to be above average age in the crowds he was hanging out with and then made a snarky one-off song about it for his own fun, which then ballooned into a full-time band. So, the self-titled debut album for that band isn't a cry of passion from a set of young hopefuls, but rather a producer mashing together collected ideas from the past three decades of dance and rock music, like a DJ mixing his own songs. It's irreverent, but that's also its charm. At this stage LCD Soundsystem was still more about singles than albums, and the debut is really just around because he found an audience that wanted one. No grand statements or glimpses into the inner state of its creator just yet: it's all about having a good time in a way only tragically cool urbanites can.

There's a real act of fan service here in that the second disc that is included as standard with the album collects all the loosies released prior to the album. The mix of foot-tapping indie disco, ragged garage rock and off-kilter pop hooks is something that would form the backbone of the actual album too, so both discs are kindred spirits in that regard, but the one-offs are naturally a bit more uninhibited and some of the essential LCD Soundsystem cuts are in fact gathered among them. "Losing My Edge" is the obvious one, of course: Murphy's debut single is a glorious seven-and-half minute sardonic rant sent to a slick groove, it's full of immortal and infinitely quotable lines and it culminates in the most beautifully manic listing of one's record shelf in a fit of madness dear and near to any music geek's heart. It's a perfect debut single in how it establishes everything there is to know about LCD Soundsystem right from the get-go, from Murphy's dry delivery and the wit in his words to the music built on repetitive but gradually intensifying jamming, all introduced clearly. The "crass version" of "Yeah" is another mainstay favourite, offering more of that extended jamming in what is one of Murphy's best long-form dance-offs, and with other highlights like the brilliantly punchy house deep cut "Beat Connection" or the 'pretentious' brother of "Yeah" (instrumental but longer and slightly fancier arrangement), the pseudo-bonus disc would be worth the price of admission alone. The only real below-par song is "Tired", a stab at grimy garage rock which later morphs into a more recognisable LCD Soundsystem form but never shakes off coming across as an ill-fitting set of clothes you're trying to force yourself into.

The difference between the one-offs and the actual album is that the latter is a little tighter in its composition, with its shorter songs steering clear of too much jamming and with some semblance of a cohesive structure in tow. Only some; the nature of the album is still more resembling of a curated mixtape, flipping between styles and sounds. Some of these would form the basis of LCD Soundsystem to come, e.g. the swerve, swagger and post-millennium ironic snark of "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" would form the pattern for many of Murphy's later lead singles. Others are curio snapshots of Murphy trying his hand out with different things without a greater plan in mind: the ragged near-punk of "Movement" is more of Murphy's early fascinations with something rowdier and "Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up" is a 90s alt rock ballad through and through, and neither sound would make another appearance again after this album. While those offshoots have their charms (I have a particular affinity towards the somber laziness and nostalgic guitar of "Never as Tired..." especially), the strengths of the tracklist lie clearly in the material Murphy would later choose to expand upon. The lightning-in-a-bottle feeling of "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" is enduringly exciting in its wonderful 'dance hit for people who are too cool to dance' aesthetic and the synth-heavy floor fillers "Tribulations", "Too Much Love" and "Disco Infiltrator" deliver the hooks like uppercuts, striking right to the nerve. Of these, "Tribulations" especially is a bit of a hiden gem: its urgency and a more fixated tone is a mile away from the rest of the album and it picks up steam brilliantly as it progresses until it sounds like Murphy is fighting to steer it.

If not already apparent, the accurate take to take away from the album is that's more of a blueprint or a template for later works. Whether or not Murphy foresaw himself taking the band beyond this in the first instance is one thing, but it's evident that at this stage he was still testing the waters and stretching his wings, operating on a more single-oriented mindset even within the actual album. They're fun waters and LCD Soundsystem has nothing to be ashamed of next to its more famous counterparts, but it's decidedly a little rough around its edges and while the Murphy trademarks are on full display, the overall sound is lacking the later albums' greater vision and realisation of how he can merge the extroverted and introverted. It's also an odd case where the "bonus" disc is just as if not even more essential than the album itself: the two really are rather inseparable even if they're ultimately independent works, and as a full package this is so much more because of its inclusion. Summa summarum, Murphy and co's debut is a lot of fun and is full of charm, but it's very rarely anything actually essential; it's a slapdash party album for music nerds who don't want to go to parties and doesn't set its sights beyond it, but it's got the hooks and grooves to make it a load of fun regardless.

Rating: 7/10

Rubik - Jesus Vs. People (2007)

CD1 (Jesus): 1) Jesus; 2) Motorik Haiku; 3) Telec; 4) Swim Swim Swim; 5) Hell=; 6) Yes I Know But Thank You Anyway
CD2 (People Go Missing): 1) Telecvokning; 2) Haiku Motorik; 3) Don't Take a Swim; 4) Feel Like a Spark; 5) (untitled); 6) Just Heads Dropping

A set of two EPs: one the band's debut EP, the second a reimagination of it. Musically and conceptually intriguing.

Key tracks: "Haiku Motorik" / "Motorik Haiku"

Jesus vs People pulls together two EPs from both sides of Rubik’s debut Bad Conscience Patrol. On one side you have the debut EP People Go Missing, while the other is a set of new songs dubbed the Jesus EP, named after and tied behind the radio mix of the Bad Conscience Patrol cut “Jesus/Hypnotist”. The really interesting thing comes with the tracklists - half of Jesus features half of People Go Missing, re-envisioned and re-recorded by a now more experienced and adventurous band. What could just have been a re-release or a set of stop gap songs in-between albums is now instead a fascinating snapshot of a band in development, hinting at the future by reworking their own past. 

People Go Missing managed to create a bit of a buzz around the band when it was first released, including myself, and if there’s one specific reason for that it’s “Haiku Motorik”. Early Rubik were moody and intense, coming across as a mixture of Radiohead’s atmospherics and Mew’s dynamics, and “Haiku Motorik” was where the two met perfectly. Initially propelled by a steady beat and a twinkling piano melody, it eventually explodes into a swarm of guitars, keyboards and sheer muscular power as if by a flick of a switch - and for myself and I presume for many others, that flick is the moment when Rubik went from a better-than-average MySpace act to a genuine point of interest. It’s still by and far the best thing on the EP and a highlight even in the overall discography, its primal power never getting old. It’s bookended by good company: the creeping, stop-start/quiet/loud starter “Telecvokning” gets into a good swing with its guitar-heavy choruses (it’s easy to forget how guitar-driven this band was in the early days) even if the constant pauses start eating the song away a little towards the end, while “Don’t Take a Swim” completes the great starter trilogy with its laidback lounge groove that builds up nicely during its runtime, complete with some deliciously earworm-y melodies and details. The second half of the EP doesn’t quite measure up to its first: there’s a clear focus on slow-building creep and further quiet/loud dynamics, but while the calmer “Feel Like a Spark” and the rawer “Just Heads Dropping” (as well as the untitled instrumental interlude) are fine, they’re clearly cut from a less memorable cloth than the first three songs. 

Which is why it makes sense that it’s the first half that’s been chosen to go through the facelift process on the newer half of the collection. The Jesus EP foreshadows the band’s move away from the more traditional rock sound of their debut into a more developed sound of their own, toning away some of the guitars and beginning to introduce new sonic elements – in this EP’s case it mainly manifests in some electronic flavourings. “Motorik Haiku” is the clearest example as the original’s name is flipped and its sound turned into a full-on electronica/synth-pop form, with the previous structure and arrangement twisted and played around with. It’s enjoyable and groovy in its own way, but the dynamics have been smoothened out as well and the result isn’t as explosive as the original. “Telecvokning” (now just “Telec”) on the other hand gets a rekindled fire under its belly with some processed sound that underline the atmosphere, a more powerful production that really gives it an oomph and a more consistently rocking finale in place of the original’s dynamic flips. “Swim Swim Swim” keeps mostly to the original, but it speeds up the tempo into a rapid shuffle. It could go either way – I prefer the surreal chill vibe of the original but the band sound more hyped up in the remake, and they both have their strengths to an equal degree. 

The last two songs on Jesus are new to the EP, but still follow the footsteps of People Go Missing by ending the suite on two slow, atmospheric dirges. Much like with the first EP as well, these are lesser works compared to the rest; though, that said, “Hell=” turns out be an understatedly pretty song that almost becomes a highlight of its own, thanks to its admittedly nifty guitar work. The apocalyptic “Yes I Know But Thank You Anyway” builds wall of sound around itself as it grows into its booming ending, but for all the dramatic bluster it still struggles to stand out. In addition to the two final songs, there’s also the lead-in track “Jesus”, originally one of Bad Conscience Patrol’s highlights with its unexpextedly softer and lusher tone. Now the extended collapse and rebuild of its middle section has been chopped off and it carries a more radio-shiny mixing courtesy of outside mixer Michael Ilbert, but it’s hardly a radical reworking and all the song’s strengths are still intact. It’s a little superfluous and out of place here, carrying little similarity to any of the other five songs, but it’s still a lovely song - and out of everything on the EP, it’s “Jesus” that would signal the band’s upcoming progression the clearest.

Neither of the two EPs are all-out great as they both fizzle out towards the end, but the inclusion of the Jesus side in the first place turns both into something more interesting than the pure sum of their parts. They’re not only just an interesting duo to compare and contrast with each other (clearly intended by the band), but it quickly yet effectively doubles up the amount of great moments. Even if they’re interpretations of the same material, they’re fully distinct enough for neither to fully overthrow the other. This is obviously a curio grab for the bigger fans and the main attraction is the re-issue of People Go Missing, but the band were kind enough to make it more than just a plain re-release. 

Rating: 7/10

Regina - Katso maisemaa (2005)

1) Elokuva; 2) Pidä varasi, tyttö!; 3) Tokio; 4) Katso maisemaa; 5) Olisitko sittenkin halunnut palata; 6) Kohtaamisia kaupungissa; 7) Pieni ystävä; 8) Nyt on jo myöhäistä; 9) Uusi resepti; 10) Minua ollaan vastassa

Retro kitsch synth pop. Doesn't quite ride its concept as far as it could but gets almost there.

Key tracks: "Pidä varasi, tyttö!", "Katso maisemaa", "Olisitko sittenkin halunnut palata"

In this day and age Katso maisemaa might not seem like much of a big deal stylistically: enticingly 80s-inspired production together with a female singer full of personality is commonplace as anything. In Finland though, and in 2005? This was wild. And it still kind of is, or at least it has stayed remarkably fresh because Regina go over and beyond that descriptor on the album. Here Regina sound like the concept came first and the band was formed solely to make it come true: songs that curtsy around retro sounds and revelling in careful simplicity in how it’s been written, musically and lyrically. Iisa’s child-like delivery and the naïvely direct lyrics about everyday things (watching a movie, moving house, looking at the scenery on a road trip) are right in the forefront and blur the line between knowing winks and genuine expression, and the music desires to be catchy so unashamedly that the song about going to Tokyo features a koto-esque melody and sudden Japanese words - which of course it would. Katso maisemaa is so twee it’s practically kitsch.

The sheer dedication to their chosen musical concept makes the first four songs of Katso maisemaa still a thoroughly giddy, incredibly charming little journey into a world where everything can be seen through wide-eyed wonder and there’s a big hook around each corner to accompany it. “Pidä varasi, tyttö!” still feels like a signature song for the band even if they abandoned the style it represents right after this album: its three minutes are a near-perfect condensation of Katso maisemaa, as Iisa warns about the bad girl in school over a ridiculously addictive chorus that bounces around so jubilantly. The only real niggle is that it’s perhaps a little too pristine for its bedroom production aesthetic: I don’t mean to go all “the demo is better” here but I have heard the originally released the demo and the slightly more lo-fi soundscape does suit the retroism better. “Elokuva” and “Tokio” are bright and colourful energy rushes that suit the unicorn reindeers and rainbow comets of the album cover perfectly, and together the three songs form an introduction that still sounds fresh and genuinely gets you giddy. The title track rounds off the start perfectly: there’s a bittersweet tang to its atmospheric swoops and dreamy textures, and the way they build up make the premise of simply watching the world go by from the passenger seat feel otherworldly. It’s the best song on the album, and befittingly to its theme it’s also a milestone on the album’s flow because after it, Regina changes things up slightly.

It’s not too radical - the shtick is still firmly there - but Regina start thinking beyond their concept for the latter half of the album. The songs begin to introduce little added nuances beyond the faithful verse-chorus-verse template and extend their lengths, the mood starts to vary from technicolour explosion and the lyrics start tackling adult relationships, albeit still in a charmingly direct fashion. It’s welcome because a full album of Regina’s brand of musical cotton candy might have been a little too much ten songs in a row, but more seriously toned songs like “Olisitko sittenkin halunnut palata” and “Nyt on jo myöhäistä” move some of the overt cutesiness aside at a comfortable pace. The former manages to launch a formidable build-up towards the end despite its short length and “Nyt on jo myöhäistä” has brilliant house piano breakdowns cutting through its tense urgency. Admittedly, on a more general note the latter stages of Katso maisemaa aren’t as immediate (or excellent) as its first run of songs, and the almost annoying “Uusi resepti” is a decent example of how badly Regina’s chosen style could easily bite against them, utilising every trick in their bag in a somewhat more grating way. In fact, apart from “Minua ollaan vastassa” which closes the album in a more solemn rendition of what the first set of songs aimed to do, towards the end Regina are in danger of becoming a little too ordinary for their own good. It’s a dangerously front-stacked album.

But don’t let that tarnish the fun too much. Katso maisemaa is still an inspired, engaging album which succeeds in sounding one-of-a-kind even as rest of the world caught up - and Regina’s own decision to move away from its sound after its release certainly helped with that. It’s not anything more than a fun pop record but Regina make it their own: you can’t mistake the 30-odd minutes they’ve created here for anyone else’s creation. In the end what stops it hitting any higher echelons isn’t the fault of the style in one direction or another, and regardless, what you have is still a good album and one impression-leaving debut.

Rating: 7/10

John Frusciante - Letur-Lefr EP (2012)

1) In Your Eyes; 2) 909 Day; 3) Glowe; 4) FM; 5) In My Light

Round one for Frusciante's re-invention. An EP of one-offs before the actual album, but somehow this pulls the trick far better than its big brother.

Key tracks: "909 Day", "In My Light"

John Frusciante officially confirmed his departure from the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the end of 2009, though he'd been unofficially out of the picture for a little bit longer than that. One of the reasons cited was getting tired of the rock star life and the music he was playing; so, after moving away from the Peppers, he pushed his guitar to the side and started focusing on electronic music. 2012 would also see the debut release of Frusciante's new chapter, PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone, but it was first preceded by Letur-Lefr EP: described as the pathway to Frusciante realising his new vision, it was meant to consist of random songs that Frusciante created while still developing the sound he was aiming for. Now, you can easily make the argument that it probably benefits from its shorter length, but for a set of trial runs Letur-Lefr is actually a far tighter body of work than the main album.

Much like PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone, Letur-Lefr's theme is Frusciante exploring new territories, but unlike the subsequent album, Letur-Lefr is much more playful about it. Perhaps chalk that down to it effectively being a collection of things done just for fun, but where PBX has the sound of an ambitious project being let down by its creator's choice of production, Letur-Lefr is giddy with new ideas. There's a fair few ideas new to Frusciante's solo records scattered across even only these five songs, and particularly from a production standpoint the new era seems to be as much about Frusciante fitting himself into that role above being the sole frontman. There's a great hip-hop influence throughout and a handful of rappers, most prominently RZA and Kinetic9, feature throughout and on "FM" Frusciante takes the backseat completely from the way of the guests, which acts like a surprisingly successful try-out for a new job as a hip-hop producer (Frusciante would in fact go on to produce a full album for Black Knights later on, though I've not heard how well this turned out).

Synthesizers and drum machines aren't a new thing for Frusciante but the heavy emphasis on drum loops in particular really characterises both the sound of the EP as well as its playfulness. The brief instrumental "Glowe" is effectively just a series of different sampled loops glued onto each other by a simple guitar line, but even at barely a minute long with little in the way of a grand idea, it sounds like a ton of fun was had piecing the jigsaw together and it manages to create a hectic groove for itself. "909 Day" is a similar sort of near-instrumental musical quilt collection, and has a similar infectious joy to its wild abandon of throwing everything into the mix - but then halfway flicks into a drastically different gear, its synth stabs moving towards something more epic and atmospheric as the vocals return.

The biggest difference between the EP and the subsequent album are how those abrupt musical changes and beat switches, which would become the signature elements for this electronic period, sound far more more natural and in control here - which, once again, is the opposite of what you'd expect from a series of supposed experiment takes. Perhaps because these were written and recorded during a transitional period of sorts, the songs still take influence from the songwriting and arrangement ideas of Frusciante's prior decade of music, but they're now fearlessly mashed together with all the new ideas he's hatching. If the big center of the EP is the wild west of those ideas, then it's the bookends that really shine the strengths of the new course. Frusciante dubbed his new style as "progressive synth-pop" and "In Your Eyes" and "In My Light" exemplify this the best: both are almost hook-driven and sound both familiar as well as unique to Frusciante's back catalogue, and while they twist and turn and change shape, there's always a red line running throughout them. "In My Light" is particularly brilliant -  it's probably the best thing to come out of this entire period for Frusciante, primarily because of its first half that for an all-too-brief moment becomes a stunningly glorious ascent of swirling synths and falsetto. The song then quickly leaves that section behind and takes the flight following that ascent, racing around briefly like it's already doing victory laps, before settling down again. It goes from aching to awestruck and back again in an impressive instant.

At little over ten minutes Letur-Lefr is over annoyingly quickly, but the more I listen to this chapter of Frusciante's 2012 release couplet, the more it feels like this is the more important piece purely in terms of its quality and the enjoyment derived from it. PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone, while enjoyable to a degree, is a direct continuation of the themes explored here but the wrong lessons have been learned, leading to an ultimatly disjointed album. Letur-Lefr is chaotic as well, but the actual songs sound positively empowered by it while still holding together within their own confinements. You can tell it's a practice round by how it sounds like a sketch page of ideas dotted around, but Frusciante clearly had a really good time trying out each of those ideas and that results in a set of short but really good songs, the likes of which I would happily listen for another ten minutes or more.

Rating: 8/10

John Frusciante - The Empyrean (2009)

1) Before the Beginning; 2) Song to the Siren; 3) Unreachable; 4) God; 5) Dark/Light; 6) Heaven; 7) Enough of Me; 8) Central; 9) One More of Me; 10) After the Ending

A cohesive tracklist, an expanded studio palette and a concept to tie it all together - Frusciante expands his boundaries again as a culmination of his past decade of solo records.

Key tracks: "Song to the Siren", "Unreachable", "Central"

The last time Frusciante was releasing music under his own name, it was a show-off of inspiration: several albums worth of music all recorded in a handful of binge sessions and later assorted into a variety of records, all released within the space of twelve months. This was then followed up a few years later by the release of Stadium Arcadium with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a scattershot double album which was another result of vastly fruitful recording sessions where no one nixed any song stem that someone thought up. You could imagine that The Empyrean began as an intentional counterpoint for all of that, just to switch things up. It's only ten songs, all of which were designed from the beginning to be firmly together: an album designed as an album first and foremost, with little extra material beyond what was meant to be within it in the first place.

The Empyrean is a concept album but as usual for Frusciante, the lyrics are fairly oblique and more interested in imagery than a solid narrative; so, unless you go actively digging for it the actual story is fairly hard to track and there's a degree of that being intentional. It's meant to be a metaphysical narrative of sorts of an artist dying (literally or metaphorically), traveling through afterlife, confronting God and his own soul, and finding meaning in the universe through art... or something along those lines. When asked, even Frusciante's own explanations have been full of words like "probably" and "maybe", and it's obvious it was never meant to be a clear story as much as it is a framework for the music. In fact, beyond the obvious connections in the song titles nudging towards a greater concept it might not even be that obvious that this is a concept album. But how that concept manifests itself more concretely is in the music itself: the way it's arranged, the way the album flows, the little links or shared melodies across the songs. It's very obvious that a great amount of time has been spent on how the actual album progresses, far more than on any Frusciante album before. Even if you can't find a story in the words, it's obviously in the music.

I want to in particular geek out about the opening trio here: a brilliant showcase of sustaining a mood and building up a resolution across several tracks, with the most patient opening Frusciante has ever featured across his records. Normally his albums open up with their respective signature cuts that introduce the chosen sound with the most instant melodies of the record; instead, "Before the Beginning" is a nine-minute slow-burner instrumental, mainly featuring Frusciante expanding on a relatively simple solo melody with his guitar atop a simple, steady drum beat. It's little more than an intro that could have probably been several minutes shorter, but its long lead-in is a scene-setter for the full album, a lead-in for the listener to sink into. The Tim Buckley cover "Song to the Siren" is a gentle continuation, introducing Frusciante's voice for the first time on the record. The calm pace is kept but instrumentation now expanded and arrangements getting more detailed, and Frusciante interprets the song beautifully - it very much is a literal siren song beckoning the listener deeper into the sound, and it's one of the most vulnerably beautiful pieces Frusciante has committed on record. The almost cold open of "Unreachable" is the wake-up call after the two dreamers before it. Its steady pace is reminiscent of "Before the Beginning" just with a brisker touch, but eventually it culminates into a furious crescendo that finally, after two and a half songs, kicks the album truly into motion. If that sounds like a really slow, meandering opening, it's anything but: the way the opening trio is paced and quietly builds up on one another as a long-form slide into the album's world is spectacular, and when "Unreachable" unfurls after all that subtle build-up, it's phenomenal.

The Empyrean features a similar sort of arrangement galore throughout. The flow of the album is brilliant and there's a clear indication it was designed from the get-go to be listened to as a whole unit. There's little arrangement delights throughout both musically and from a more meta perspective: songs called "Enough of Me" and "One More of Me" that share the same melody, surrounding a song titled "Central" is just the most overt of them. The aim to create a musical narrative leads to a cohesive but an increasingly free-form nature of the actual song structures to guide the ebb and flow of the drama rather than racing for the ABABCB structure, and together with the often extended lengths of the songs Frusciante's familiar songwriting style has gained a gentle prog rock undercurrent. To complement this, The Empyrean also features the richest sound Frusciante has ever featured on his albums to help bring all the nuances to life. It's an all-star cast ranging from frequent solo collaborator Josh Klinghoffer and RHCP-bandmate Flea dealing with most of the rhythm section throughout the album, to one-off guest spots like Johnny Marr (on "Central", where his guitar either drowns under Frusciante's or he chooses to imitate Frusciante's style). A string quartet features regularly - a Frusciante first - to lend select songs a slightly more epic scope. It's all very uncharacteristically indulgent for Frusciante, but after a series of records that had a humble, home-recorded sound, it's positively boastful.

Where it only so slightly falters is that so much of the album is dedicated to act as one narrative piece, that when considered piece-by-piece it comes across less impressive. Apart from the opening trio there's only two other big stand-out songs scattered across The Empyrean, and it's the two lengthy ones, "Dark/Light" and "Central". The other songs feel like they've been written primarily to pad the narrative forward, enjoyable as they are. For example, the keyboard-heavy rock-out "God" and the more traditionally Frusciante-like autumnal mid-tempo "Enough of Me" are good songs, and I particularly love the penultimate section of "Enough of Me" as the song switches onto a brighter note; but measure them against earlier album deep cuts and they're not quite as exciting after all. It's the same across the rest. "After the Ending" makes for a really effective closer with its atmospheric and slightly ethereal sound, sending the listener alongside the protagonist to some great void into the unknown, but as a song it's not much to write home about; "One More of Me" is mainly notable for Frusciante adopting an oddly guttural singing voice and for being a sneaky reprise; and "Heaven" simply sinks between more memorable cuts. For a person like me who always makes too much of a point about the context of the whole album and who listens to these things in full more often than not, this shouldn't really be an issue - and it's not, because while it's on The Empyrean makes a very good sonical journey, in particular through a good set of headphones. But when it takes a good moment or two to remember how some of these songs go following a regular stint of listening to the album, something's a little amiss enough to point it out

But you do have those two latter-album highlights, and what songs those two are. "Dark/Light" moves from a glacial and solemnly spatial piano piece to a bright, choir-starring call-and-answer cut that might go on a little bit too long perhaps, but the switch between the two sounds is a delight each time and the "Light" section is full of wonderful elements, from the choir trading lines with Frusciante to the lively bass riff that's jamming its own thing over the simple drum machine. "Central" is the centerpiece colossus, the Moment that the rest of the album seems to build up to and then spends the remainder recovering from - it sees Frusciante firing at all guns to create a monster of an anthem, with roaring guitar solos, string sections, intense vocals, explosive breakdowns... you name it. It's a huge song and a powerhouse of a performance that sounds almost unhinged if not for the clear precision in its production. Both move well beyond Frusciante's typical musical borders in scope, showing off he can do something larger than life if his mood strikes right. The album would be a greatly lesser work without them, both from the perspective of how much life they bring to the sequence but just from a quality perspective as well; the latter, in particular, is the real winner of the record and the one that rises above everything else the most.

The Empyrean would go to close off an era for Frusciante. The 2000s were a humongous decade for the man musically, not just as as a wildly prolific and consistent solo artist but at the same time also leading the Chili Peppers through the most successful part of their career, solidifying himself as the all-time iconic guitarist for the band who had seen so many of them come and go. Roll forward to the next decade and Frusciante would leave the Peppers for good and subsequently reinvent himself musically, leaving behind his standard rock background and ditching his guitar behind with it. It's hard not to then see The Empyrean as something of a culmination point for the decade it closes off. It's a sum of all the lessons learned and tricks showcased throughout the past decade before they were to be washed away, from distilling its tracklist to the very essentials rather than sprawling 15+ song albums, to bringing back a full-fledged studio production without straying too far away from the living room warmth of the 2004/2005 set of releases. After a decade of sprawling records and recording sessions there's finally an album that's a cohesive unit from its origination to the final release, as if to finally give a nod to certain parts of the audience and say it's always been possible, just never been in the mindset for it. For all that I give it the applause it deserves, because above all The Empyrean is a gorgeously constructed whole - in the right context and place it's absolutely a journey that seizes the attention. It only really suffers when compared against its kin in a wider context, but artistically it's a showcase for Frusciante and at its best it's downright brilliant, even if its sole focus in its own singular experience can be both a boon and fault. It's only that which makes me downrate this slightly; most days of the year I'd find myself moving towards another solo record of his simply because they're stronger to stand out, and that ends up accounting in the rating. It's only when it's on that I actually remember the strengths of The Empyrean.

Rating: 7/10