for people who can't read

I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead | El-P
Definitive Jux | March 20th

Review by Scotland

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Definitive Jux
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Sounds like … Hip-Hop without the marketing team

Aside from Hell Hath No Fury by The Clipse, some Dilla re-releases, and perhaps Security Screenings by Prefuse 73, the overall concentration of Hip-Hop in the 2006 release mix seemed to have been heavily diluted by a slurry of mediocrity. Fortunately for the heads out there, it seems that the tipping point has been reached in 2007, heralding the return of dense, intelligent, powerful Hip-Hop in the guise of the new El-P record, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead (ISWYD).

From the seven-minute opening track it’s clear that ISWYD is going to be an intense ride, musically and lyrically deep, and breathtakingly ambitious. A Twin Peaks reference sets the tone for the rest of the album - a Lynch-inspired haunting realism lurking just below the façade of city living. With urgent guitar work by the Mars Volta and the desperate refrain “the whole design got my mind cryin’ and if I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’, shit” the track TPC, like the album it introduces, marches definitively to its own immensely powerful broken beat.

El-Producto took five years to craft this album, time well spent considering how listenable such a musically complex record is. Elements of experimental jazz find their way into the mix (Smithereens) and syncopated snare loops provide the sonic backdrop for venomous rebukes like “I might have been born yesterday Sir, but I stayed up all night” (Up All Night). The funk-inflected minimalism of EMG merges into the rock-fusion of Drive, with El-P’s darkly opaque rhymes covering war, drugs, secular religion, and fear of flying amongst other things.

By the time Cat Power helps flip the meaning of the album’s title from menacing threat to bitter rebuke on Poisonville Kids No Wins, the damage has been done. Make no mistake about it, Hip-Hop needed this album, and so do you.

9 out of 10

Strange Form Of Life | Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
Domino | March 19th

Review by Jigantor

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Domino Records
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Sounds like … Nick Drake in the frail body of a mortal.

Will Oldham is hurt. Will Oldham is gentle. Will Oldham observes, and loves.

Will Oldham's voice cracks. He knows the notes, he's straining to get there, but he can't quite manage it. He's playing a broken guitar by the fire, as the rain comes down outside your hut. You don't know how you got here, and you don't care, you just know that you never want to leave. He looks like a biker when he lets his beard grow; he looks like a lost boy when he doesn't. He is singing his gentle songs that he's written for you. They are bare, free of distractions, just the music and words joining together in beauty. He is beautiful. He is captivating. He is perfect.

Thank god, this is not emo music. This is not the overproduced Emotion™ that EMI tries to sell you. This is music in its most pure form. This is music that goes straight for the heart and you can't help but respond. If you think that James Blunt is heartfelt, it may take you a few listens to appreciate this record. But do it. You will never look back.

8 out of 10

We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank | Modest Mouse
Epic | March 17th

Review by Tom Fairman

Website | Epic Records
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Sounds like … Franz Ferdinand with personality disorders.

Modest Mouse, fronted by the enigmatic Issac Brock, have returned with their first long player since 2004’s mainstream success, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, and have thus entered into an era of their career where they’ll find every Tom, Seth and Mischa scouring the tracks of We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank for the next foot-stomping Float On follow up.

We Were Dead opens strongly with March Into The Sea, a frenetic portrait of complex commercialised modern life that echoes the bands work on 1998’s The Moon & Antarctica –“We all stumbled round tangled up in the cords from our phones, V.C.R. and our worldly woes.” The track, which sets the tone for the rest of the album, builds to a crescendo that gives way to first single Dashboard, which seems to answer Float On’s “we’ll float on, good news is on the way” with “we scheme and we scheme but we always blow it.” James Mercer of The Shins provides back up vocals on the infectious We Have Everything, and the 8-minute Spitting Venom remains strong despite varying between sea-shanty, blistering rock and indie groove.

No artist deserves all of their post-‘hit’-art to be endlessly compared and graded against their ‘breakthrough’ work, yet this is unfortunately inevitable. We Were Dead, while perhaps being slightly overlong, not as intriguing as The Moon & Antarctica, or as easily accessible as Good News, should be seen for what it is, and that is a strong, intelligent album in the arc of Modest Mouse’s career. Here they have proven their ability to write irresistibly enjoyable dance-rock songs that bear a razors edge that quietly rips at modern life, only revealed when the lyric booklet is pried open – suitably mimicking the commercialized culture they so often criticize.

7 out of 10

Jarvis | Jarvis Cocker
Rough Trade | March 4th

Review by Tom Fairman

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Rough Trade Records
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Sounds like … a quiet evening, a good book, and a glass of red wine with the former front man of Pulp.

Before I delve into this review, there’s something you should know.

I had a little aurgasm the first time I heard Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time, the hip-rockin’, head-bobbin’ first single off Jarvis. So with my rock-sytocin levels going through the roof, the following review may be a little skewed.

With Pulp on hiatus, Jarvis Cocker found himself free to indulge in some unfettered song writing, the result being the ear-pleasing aforementioned first single, originally written for Lil’ Blue Eyes herself, Nancy Sinatra.

Jarvis rattles along with the infectious sardonic wit that was so representative of Pulp’s work, with Fat Children a pitch-perfect example. Yet, there are numerous departures from that Pulp-sound, with other tracks on the album employing softly played pianos and brushed drums, creating a solo record that is more synonymous with “intimate” than “personal.”

However, the real beauty of Jarvis is the urgency to the dryness, with Cocker pleading with fainéant youth on From Auschwitz to Ipswich, “can’t you please do something with your life?” The (unfortunately secret) track, Cunts are Still Running the World, is the most hilarious, brutally honest and perhaps only disco-protest-song of our generation. From beginning to end, it safely eludes falling into the Bob Geldof & co. preaching pit, Jarvis seeing that the problems of the world can’t be solved by a $2 white plastic wristband.

So as the album slowly stops spinning, and you’re left panting, staring lovingly at everyone’s favourite bespectacled hipster, I can only hope that it was as good for you as it was for me.

9 out of 10

Introducing Joss Stone | Joss Stone
Virgin Records | March 3rd

Review by Tarang Chawla

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Virgin Records
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Sounds like … the awkward silence that ensues when you can’t remember the name of the person who was just introduced to you.

Introducing Joss Stone showcases a nineteen-year old Brit with a huge voice whose songwriting prowess leaves something to be desired. As her third studio album it poses the question: Why introduce yourself now? According to Stone, her two previous efforts (2003’s debut Soul Sessions, and 2004’s Mind, Body & Soul) didn’t reveal the ‘real her’, yet given the freedom Stone purports to assert on Introducing it falls short of the nuanced, independent performance she is striving to achieve.

Introducing begins with a speech by former English Footballer Vinnie Jones that sounds decidedly irrelevant – less like a definition and more like an outtake from Snatch as he explains that ‘it takes balls to change’. Aside from the fact that Jones is starting to sound like a parody of himself, one other small detail becomes clearer and clearer as the album progresses - Joss Stone definitely lacks balls, and not much has changed.

While Stone’s voice packs a hefty punch, her natural talent is not enough to get her through 14 tracks. Introducing sounds like one long song with the occasional big-name collaboration. While these cameos provide this pop R&B record with some critical clout, at best the inclusion of Common and Lauryn Hill seems like an all-too-obvious marketing tactic.

There can be no disputing Stone’s ability to carry a tune but on Introducing it appears she amalgamates her influences with an overzealous approach to production and attempts to make up for constantly holding back with a new crimson red hair ‘do and flamboyant cover art. It’s not ‘nice to meet you’ with Introducing, rather a perplexed, ‘You’ve changed, man!’

5 out of 10

Stepfords Live | The Stepfords
No Label | 1998

Review by Jen Jewel Brown



Website

Sounds like … the best little barroom in hell.

The sexy outlaw music of The Stepfords, a tamale-hot unsigned New York/Sydney band who scored the recent national Tony Joe White tour supports, is currently only available through MySpace. That’s something to raise a glass to, while it lasts.

Online phenomenon MySpace is a shark cage against the jaws of the few remaining multinational record companies, those amorphous mega-monsters prowling the economic rationalist deep as they consume each other mindlessly, year after year.

At least at http://www.myspace.com/thestepfords there are friends, free samples of three indie releases and the ability to contact the band direct to mail order this LP Stepfords Live, first album Gas, Food & You or the new four-track EP View From the Floor (2007) via the band’s own label Sway Records.

The Stepfords are the wicked, wicked ways of New York singer Monica McMahon, backed by Sydney-siders Jim Bowman (ex-Ed Kuepper) and Jon Schofield (ex Paul Kelly & the Messengers) on guitars, Clyde Bramley (Hoodoo Gurus) on bass and Iain Shedden (ex Saints) on drums. With this line-up you get a nice touch of garage dirtying up a set of very classy band-written originals.

With the moody “I Can See Hell from Here”, the kick-arse “Cocktail Dress” plus “Black Tears”, “Devil’s Lullaby” and seven other melodic yet gritty tracks, Stepfords Live was recorded at Sydney’s legendary Hopetoun Hotel in 1997, swiftly becoming a collector’s item. The band took a long break while other projects called and the iconic McMahon headed back to New York. The Stepfords’ first appearance on MySpace in June 2006, combined with some rare but dynamic gigs, brought a resurgence of attention. Schofield heads to the Lower East Side shortly to do some songwriting with McMahon. Watch out for a new album down the track.

8 out of 10

Welcome to for people who can't read, a(nother) blog about music.

Feel free to snoop around and make yourself at home. We don't have much here just yet, but hopefully that'll change soon enough - we've got some couches arriving next week and the fridge is fully stocked with Sueño, so make sure you bring round the Bombay Sapphire yeah Jono? Oh, and get on the blower to Miss Jelly Hands, Jesstron V, and The Sebarillo Kid to see if they can bring the coconuts. Sound.

Our title is stolen from inspired by the ludicrous Frank Zappa, a man who named his four children Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan, and Diva Thin Muffin:

Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read.

This quotation is so right it's practically wrong - yet again, the man was lightyears ahead of the pack, although it's also possible he just passed too close to the Sun. Either way, we dig his words.

So here's how it works. Our plucky contributors will be writing on a regular basis for Farrago, the University of Melbourne's student paper. They'll be doing their best to disprove old Frank and take their readers on a cosmic interstellar reviewing odyssey™ to galaxies as yet uninvented by bored astrologers.

Sadly, their musical appreciation can be but one voice among the billions, which is why we created this blog. If you loved | liked | were indifferent to | despised (delete as appropriate) the reviews printed in Farrago, this space is for you to register your own feelings about the music under scrutiny. And while you might be tempted to launch an attack on the reviewers themselves, remember, writers are humans too.

for people who can't read (fpwcr) will also serve as a soup kitchen for undernourished and homeless reviews. If the print budget for Farrago doesn't stretch to the 72-page pull-out supplement we are fantasising about (OK, so maybe it's just me that's fantasising about that), there's a good chance some contributions will end up here. Of course, in time these forgotten works will be regarded as classics in themselves, and will be collected in a four-volume, hippopotamus-hide, limited edition release for all the futurehipsters to devour greedily. But for now, you can comment on those here too.

Dig in people. I'll leave you with a couple of pearls from our posthumous patron, Frank Vincent Zappa:

My theory is that music is good, it's the only religion that delivers the goods. And anybody who wants to hear any kind of music is entitled to hear that music because it's good for you – it makes you feel good. If you like it, go for it. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean anything – it's a matter of personal taste.

And of course my own personal maxim:

Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.

Shine on you crazy diamonds,

Scotland