Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Electrelane "No Shouts, No Calls"

Another cheapo acquisition from Sheela-Na-Gig in Cloughjordan, where the local folk were proving resistant to the charms of the all-woman post-rock sensations. This is Electrelane's last album, amirite? I had thought that maybe with the Lane one would get diminishing returns with each acquired record, but this has considerable charms. I'm not sure if any of the tracks stand out as much as 'The Valleys', or their cover of 'The Partisan', or the train song on previous releases, but this is a most appealing record.

It is sometimes hard to pin down what is so likeable about this now defunct band. On one level they are pretty straightforward – guitar, bass, drums, vocals (with the odd bit of electronics and keyboards) and tunes that sound fairly straight-down-the-line on a first listen. Yet they certainly seemed to have something. One thing that always strikes me about them is their willingness to do songs without vocals, or with vocals without lyrics, something you do not get so much with this kind of instrumentation. But it is not as though their singer has a voice of high annoyance – when she does sing, her somewhat non-conventional approach does lend a considerable something to proceedings. So it is all a bit mysterious.

An inuit panda production

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