'It's All Over' from By Order Of The Moose by El Goodo

Nigh on eight years after their previous offering, and breezing in at a shade under forty minutes, El Goodo’s By Order Of The Moose proclaimed itself as 2017’s finest example of Let’s Pretend It’s 1968. Some may cast that award in a pejorative sense but I say it with the same warmth and delight that this record holds firmly within its grooves, for By Order Of The Moose is (deep breath) splendid bubble-gum psychedelic baroque Sunshine Pop. Yes, too there is a Western theme running through much of the record, as if Ennio Morricone were asked to score a soundtrack to Head and do you know, I would have loved to have heard ‘Sit And Wonder’ pop up in the equally splendid Godless. Wouldn’t that have been something? Now I wish someone would make some mash-up with it backing the epic shoot-out scene.

So ‘Sit and Wonder’ could easily have been my cut of choice for this series but then frankly so could any one of the twelve tracks. Instead though I am going to opt for the one second over two minute jewel of ‘It’s All Over’, a song apparently about the near break up of the band but equally at home being a bittersweet bubblegum Pop confection about teenage heart-break break-up that could have been concocted by The Hardy Boys or The Poppy Family. Equally it is a tune that puts me in mind of El Goodo contemporaries TV Girl, whose own de/reconstructions of Pop have delighted me so much in recent years. ‘It’s All Over’ is all girl-group dynamics soaked in cherry brandy, the kind of song designed for the dextrous tone arm lift-it-back-to-beginning of analogue lives or the hit-repeat button presses of digital. Either way, you want to listen again and again and again. Heavenly endings never sounded so groovy.

'Hotter Colder' from Moonshine Freeze by This Is the Kit

This Is The Kit were new to me in 2017, spotlight shone on them thanks to opportune posts from friends whose tastes I trust implicitly. In an idle moment of intrigue I clicked a link and instantly I was scratched deeply and deliciously. The video for ‘Hotter Colder’ immediately reminded me of my dear friend Megan Calver and her friends’ artworks where they mimic seals on a beach or read poetry to trees. By which I mean that in both there is sense of a deep connection to nature and the earth that is almost entirely unsentimental and where spirituality is implied instead of being drearily obvious. This sense of connection seeps through the entirety of Moonshine Freeze but it is strongest and surest on ‘Hotter Colder’, a song where Pentangle meets Essential Logic, where Pram collides with Alice Coltrane. It is a whirling dervish that dips, turns, spins… AND… pauses in mid air like Big Flame covering Vashti Bunyan. Or Vashti Bunyan covering Big Flame, whichever feels most apposite. This Is The Kit are surely a group in the tradition of Folk music, where traditions are kept whilst simultaneously taken apart and updated to keep pace with the times, slowing time down to go backwards in seductive slips and tentative skips. I admit that an admittedly brief foray into the back catalogue proved somewhat disappointing, which suggests Moonshine Breeze to be something of a giant step into a future where chaos is embraced as an equal to harmony and peace. I’m intrigued to see where This Is The Kit go next, to see if Moonshine Breeze proves to be a magnificent oddity or whether it lays foundations for further explorations into the cosmos. Regardless, this album, and especially ‘Hotter Colder’ will stand as a captivating snapshot of an English Folk music lovingly dismantled and put back together splendidly skew-whiff.

'The Performance Of A Lifetime' from Suspended Second by The Granite Shore

Do you remember how at the start of this advent series (when we had more time on our hands) we put forward the notion of Pop not being best placed to deal with complexities due to its essential short-form medium? And do you remember how we suggested that Stephin Merritt has surely made significant works using that very property to simultaneously disprove and reinforce the notion? Well in Suspended Second The Granite Shore do their utmost to pull off the same conjuring trick. From some angles Suspended Second is a somewhat gloomy and angry record, filled as it is with songs dealing with the deeply personal politics of Brexit and the state that we are in; from others it is teasingly light and tight, making use of production techniques borrowed from Nick Halliwell’s beloved ABBA; glimpsed from yet another perspective it emanates the aura of ‘70s Progressive Rock (another of Halliwell’s esoteric obsessions). That Suspended Second blends such diffuse influences into a cohesive whole is part of its charm and magic.

It works best for me on the nigh on ten minute epic of the perhaps appropriately (and/or perhaps ironically) titled ‘The Performance Of A Lifetime’, where the pace is slower and the pitch lower, allowing Halliwell’s vocal to relish its rich timbre and the narrative he weaves to elegantly unfurl. What’s the narrative about, you ask? God only knows, although Halliwell’s own notations appear to suggest the song is filled with oblique references to Prince (that’s just Prince, the purple one, and not Prince So-and-So), so perhaps this means the song is an intriguing meta-narrative on the industry of Pop. Or perhaps too the tale is of some sort of exiled nobility coming back to claim the throne of Brexit Britain like the ghost of Edward VIII flying in from Paris or perhaps Nigel Farage stepping off a plane from Brussels waving a piece of paper in the air (his EU pension, most likely). So multiple meanings and interconnected complexities or simply too clever for its own good? Me, I’m going firmly with the former and proof that Pop can be grown up, intelligent and delicious listening all in the one moment. Then again, Halliwell would probably point out that ABBA proved this already with ‘Winner Takes It All’ some thirty seven years ago, and who would I be to argue?

'Dead Tree! Dead Tree!’ from Welcome, Stranger! by The Blue Aeroplanes

Clare Wadd, once one half of the Sarah Records empire, recently penned a lovely piece for Caught By The River in which she recounts a weekend spent walking Bristol, reflecting on places with specific connection to the constructed mythology of Sarah. There are mentions of There And Back Again Lane and Victoria Park and I mention this mainly because both feature too in Blue Aeroplanes’ ‘Dead Tree! Dead Tree!’. If you didn’t know (and of course you do, because you are reading about the Unpopular advent and by doing so are amongst that rare breed who are infused with the same trivial (mis)understandings of Pop connectivity as myself, for which you have my deepest sympathy) Blue Aeroplanes are perhaps Bristol’s finest middle-aged keepers of the esoteric rock’n’roll illusion. I mean, it’s not the sort of thing I’d want to stand on sticky floors at The Fleece to experience ‘in the flesh’ as it were (and I’m speaking from experience here) but on record I admit they retain a power to stir some kind of warped emotion in my wilted soul.

Welcome Stranger! welcomed in 2017 with a Pop! Art! slingshot, and if on occasion it dropped into a parallel universe where the dreariest rock references emerged victorious over the poetic pretensions (sorry, but ‘Skin’, for me, just seems to belong to a different record. And not in a good way) then there were enough highlights for this to feel like a splendid swirl of heady symbolist poetry. It’s almost certainly best on ‘Dead Tree! Dead Tree!’, wherein Gerard Langley insists loudly that there is no symbolism, thereby ensuring there is nothing but. The Dead Tree! in question resides in Victoria Park (I’m surprised Clare did not spot it. Perhaps she did and thought it was just a dead tree) and Langley leads his band in a strange jig around it like a gang of reprobate Morris dancers round a Maypole. Langley's lyrical bent is a weakness to some, a strength to others. Me, I like it a great deal and I admit that when I hear him intone about never getting what he asked for and therefore never asking anymore it rings in my ear as though lines from Sylvia Plath. In a snap of a finger I am transported back to being a far too earnest and impressionable twenty something and damn you Langley, damn you. The lines work the transformative power of Pop Art Poetry though and there we go and here we are, carousing around our Dead Trees and flailing our memories to within inches of their lives. We say ‘thank you’ and retire.

Oh if only, if only.

'Big August' from Upwards of Summer by Ralegh Long

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There was a compilation released this year called I Remember That!: 12 sophistipop tunes quoted out of context. Now I am ambivalent at best about the term ‘Sophistipop’ but crikey it was a terrific collection, one highlight of which was Ralegh Long’s take on Prefab Sprout’s wonderful ‘Swans’. The Prefab Sprout reference is a great one to make, particularly since Ralegh Long's Upwards of Summer set this year built so splendidly on his previous recordings in much the same way as Prefab Sprout productions allowed Paddy MacAloon to neatly sidestep being crippled with the sensitive singer/songwriter tag. So whilst on Upwards of Summer Ralegh Long retained something of his soft tread, the songs here were fleshed out and sprinkled with golden light as much as with morning dew. At times the sound ventured almost into the realms of Dreampop, as though Nick Drake had stumbled into a Moose rehearsal circa 1991. Perhaps.

Cut of choice for me is the memorable ‘Big August’ wherein Long paints gently psychedelic landscapes of languorous afternoons of summer. Slide guitars sidle alongside subtle strums with "greens the colour of orange” and “reds the colour of blues”. It’s the Big Skies of Hurrah! and The Kinks refracted through countrified kaleidoscopes; Constable reimagined by Franz Marc; Skylarking snogging The Colour Of Spring. For me ‘Big August’ soundtracked blazing Asturian mountain sojourns and days on the Galician Coast of Death yet I am sure it would do just as well as a backdrop for early mornings by the harbour in Lowestoft or evenings floating slowly down the Cherwell. The sound of European suns in English country gardens. Perhaps.

'4&4 Still Makes 8' from Adiós Señor Pussycat by Michael Head and the Red Elastic Band

Pete Wylie wasn’t the only member of the ‘80s Liverpool explosion to make a ‘comeback’ album this year (and if yer interested and/or too young to have the relevant records already, Cherry Red are curating an extensive selection of sounds from the ‘second wave’ of Merseyside music on the ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ box set, due Feb 2018). Former Pale Fountains and Shack main man Michael Head resurfaced again with his new Red Elastic Band and naturally the results were worth the wait. Adiós Señor Pussycat was filled with splendid moments, not least the fabulous ‘Queen of All Saints’, ‘What’s the Difference’ and ‘4&4 Still Makes 8’, this last number in particular showing Head at his Loveable best and really it’s the cut on Adiós where that old Arthur Lee obsession rings most clearly and true. I mean, that’s hardly surprising in a song where the title so obviously nods to '7 and 7 is’ but there you go. Nods, winks and sideways glances are always essential ingredients when making great Pop after all. So ‘4&4’ splendidly pirouettes at the half way point and squirrels off on tangential swoops of just off-kilter guitar glissandos, balanced just so. (Note – might not actually be glissandos: My level of technical musical intelligence remains stubbornly, not to mention gleefully, low). Now Head has increasingly made a point of embracing his Merseyside accent in vocal deliveries (it’s rarely, barely detectable in Pale Fountains and early Shack outings) and it’s deliciously in effect here as he shhhlurs his way through lyrics like Adrian Henri backed by Bryan MacLean. But in places too Head also recalls Francis Reader and you know, in brief moments ‘4&4’ reminds me of Trashcan Sinatras’ beautiful, beguiling ‘Earlies’ and that is no bad reference point to pick up on either.

There is a beautiful photograph of a painfully young Head in those early Pale Fountains days that Kevin Pearce shared with me some eleven years or more ago. Kevin also shared some typically poignant words, pointing out that Michael Head is "one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation”. '4&4 Still Makes 8’ and indeed the whole of Adiós Señor Pussycat reminds us this is still very much the case.

'The Spell Is Broken' from Pete Sounds! By Pete Wylie

If there were any themes to this advent series (there aren’t) then one of them might be that of (white) men reconnecting with the medium of recorded music in their middle age. Sound familiar? Well 2017 saw the return of Pete Wylie in typically swashbuckling and anthemic form. Pete Sounds! seemed to have been years in the making and I suspect many of the folks who ‘pledged’ to make it a reality may have occasionally wondered just where their pennies had gone to… But! With a glut of exclamation marks real and inferred (Wylie is clearly no subscriber to Fitzgerald’s maxim that an exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke – or perhaps he is and that is the whole point?!) Pete Sounds! finally made it to the line and proclaimed itself FINISHED! Wah! Or indeed WAH!

The Pete on Pete Sounds! is not quite as great as in the days of The Mighty Wah! but he certainly still has the swagger to pull off a tune that saunters to the stratosphere and flicks the Vs at the stars. On occasion the mask of illusion slips and the ridiculous image of middle-aged men continuing to worship at the altar of “rock’n’roll” feels uncomfortable and not a little creepy (sorry Pete! I can’t listen to album closer ‘I Still Believe’ without rolling my eyes and pressing ’skip', or indeed without remembering that disagreement between Richard Hell and Lester Bangs…) but when Pete Sounds! steers a path not quite so blatantly peppered with cliche and obviously tired self-reference it does stir the soul not a little. Second to last track ’The Spell Is Broken’ is case in point, wherein Pete! fills eight and a half minutes with a lush cacophony of switchblades and symbolist poetry. Sure, it’s no ‘Story Of The Blues parts 1 and 2’ but you know it’s not a million miles away, when even a million miles would be close enough company for most to be happy with. On ‘The Spell Is Broken’ Pete! more eloquently expresses belief in the idea of love, soul and rock’n’roll simply because he never does anything so crass as spell it so obviously. Instead he allows belief to seep into every breath and tremor, every squall and flurry. Instinctive and true, just as it ought to be. The spell isn’t broken, it’s only being woven ever more beguilingly. In truth it’s a glorious album closer and if I ever see a vinyl copy of Pete Sounds! I’m taking a knife through the grooves of ‘I Still Believe’ to make it just that.

‘Homage’ from Remember Terry by Terry

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Stephen Pastel introduced me to Terry with a 7” single on one of my all too rare sojourns to Glasgow a couple of years back. I mention this mainly because I hear a lot of The Pastels in Terry. Well, The Pastels if they were in the habit of wearing Nudie suits and cowboy boots (which to the best of my knowledge they aren’t). Their Remember Terry set this year was another splendid instalment of the Terry tale, throwing out more threads that at times have me also pondering the idea of Terry as The Human League in rhinestones or some kind of 21st century Messthetics bedroom Pop band feeding tapes of Throbbing Gristle and Guy Clark through the blender just for LOLs. Remember Terry is short, bittersweet and all the better for that. Many of the songs are over in the time it takes for a heartbeat to skip up and over the garden fence, which makes the barely four and a half minute closer ‘Homage’ feel even longer and more languorous than it maybe is. It treads a downbeat path that gurgles along on acidic blips and tinny beats, strung up with fairy lights that form a bokeh noose around the moon. The final minute or so disappears gently in a diminuendo of synthesiser in the rain, drip drip dripping insistently like tongues on a loose tooth.

Remember Terry? Always.

'Take Yourself With You’ from Stellular by Rose Elinor Dougall

For eager eagle eyed fans of Rose Elinor Dougall ‘Take Yourself With You’ was not exactly a new song (it surfaced on The Quietus’ Soundcloud page at the end of 2014), but it was dressed up in a subtly more seductive outfit that in a way summed up the entirety of her Stellular set. Now someone more in tune with the preoccupations of Younger Generations might be able to tease out some threads and references which connect to, um, whatever whoever whichever. But for Old Fogies like me the touchstones of Stellular were the likes of Broadcast, Saint Etienne and Laetitia Sadier: Pop infected with mild viruses that ensure the sounds fit within expected templates but only just and sometimes only just not quite. Perhaps some people underestimate the value of just not quite. Perhaps it is just me.

It’s to Sadier that ‘Take Yourself With You’ in particular most effectively sidles up to in my crowded, clouded brain. That’s a compliment, in case you were wondering, and you probably were. Dougall sings in a voice that is sweet but not saccharine, soft but not sentimental. There is a glamorous shallowness to the sound, and I mean that in the most positive of ways for it is a shallowness that allows surface patterns to glisten and beguile in the way that fabulous Pop always does. It facilitates slight shifts of rhythm and inflection, like rays of sunlight refracting and reflecting on golden sands. Squinting just so.

If I squint just so I can see Rose Elinor Dougall elegantly at home in a 1930s nightclub, singing siren songs shrouded in clouds of cigarette smoke drifting up, up and away from slickly dressed advertising executives and slimly pouting debutantes picking pockets for kicks. Equally she’s there in a Parisian Left Bank cafe sniggering at Sartre whilst crooning seditiously in Simone’s quivering ear or skimming around the dance floor of Studio 54 stealing Bianca’s doves and kicking stiletto heels through Andy’s entourage. Timeless and effortless.