Collecting suicidal skylarks and other Animals

Here at Bombay & Elaine, we believe in keeping our engine running through hard and tryingly lacklustre times with assorted leaps into the various worlds of high culture.

ON THE IPOD:

SUICIDE—Suicide (1977): The best description of this album is some sort of a cross between The Doors and The Modern Lovers, cross pollinated with Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. However, that doesn’t do it any sense of justice. Minimal synths, "Let Down"-worthy tinkly bits and some of the the most fascinating vocals ever turned in, courtesy of Alan Vega, my new hero. It’s completely different to anything I’ve ever heard and I love it. The opening ‘Ghost Rider’ is a dead ringer for ‘State Trooper’; the best track off Nebraska, and just as chilling. But then amidst all the tales of blue collar tragedy (including the epic ‘Johnny Teardrop’ which is what Jim Morrison was trying to do with ‘The End’ but isn't shit) there’s ‘Cheree’, and it’s so sweet you’d think it was Frankie Valli.

The news is that Suicide are playing Suicide live at All Tomorrow’s Parties in New York in September. Keen for a trip anyone?


ANGELO BADALAMENTI-Music from Twin Peaks (1991): Pure escapism. And about as close as I’ll ever get to a heroin trip. Has there ever been a better musical score for anything?


XTC—Skylarking (1986): I always thought the XTC were one of those new wave bands who were too cool to drinking beer and hated the sun. But this album is some sort of psychedelic summer dreamscape with crickets in the backgrounds and lyrics about sacrificial bonfires and dancing trees. I think it’s one of those ‘Acid Albums’ like The Zombies' incredible Odyssey & Oracle but, you know, from the Eighties. What the fuck? I’m not sure if they’re taking the piss but I think I really like it. Unfortunately, it is cursed with one of the worst album covers of all-time.


ANIMAL COLLECTIVE—Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009): Probably the only really good album to come out in a long, long time (and ironically, with one of the best album covers of alltime). I always thought I hated Animal Collective. I used to say that they were ‘stressful’ and that listening to them was like being stuck on a runaway merry-go-round like in Strangers on a Train. But MPP is a beautiful, ridiculously listenable album whose sound gets richer with every listen. And after a few days, you realize that MPP isn’t just good; it isn’t just the best Animal Collective album (I assume) or even just the album of the year. What Animal Collective have done here is to create a sound which no one in musical history has done before, not even them. Perhaps it is the fact that its release sees the end of year which—Fleet Foxes and M83 aside—has been the most barren stretch of musical desert in decades.

I read a review was compared listening to MPP to pressing the light speed button in the Millennium Falcon. Fleet Foxes’ debut and M83’s Saturdays = youth are both outstanding albums, but they both centre around recapturing genres of music long past. MPP is a jump forward; technologically, creatively and musically. It is the most important album since Kid A, and probably the best.

And perhaps it is the Obama phenomenon (cringe) but MPP is a completely optimistic album in every sense. Animal Collective make songs about being happy and loving life and it’s surprisingly refreshing. The age of grim Anit-American albums is over (and there were a LOT on that bandwagon; Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., Rufus Wainwright and Arcade Fire to name but a few), at least for now. Optimism is in. And it’s about time.


I just marked a student’s journal that included the phrases “I wash pork in the bath” and “I love a small midget.” I don’t really want to know.