Soundbites

Ed Harcourt” From Every Sphere”
Astralwerks

“Hey Jude” ruined pop music.

It was 1968, and the ultimate purveyors of the two-three-minute
pop song release a seven-plus-minute track that becomes their
biggest hit ever. Led Zeppelin goes on to record the most-requested
radio song of all time in the also seven-minute “Stairway to
Heaven,” and by the time a band like Guns N’ Roses puts
out the epic “November Rain,” every song on the radio
is essentially four to five minutes long.

The two-minute pop gem is virtually extinct. Lots of people feel
cheated when a new album comes out and is 30 minutes long. (No
Beatles album released between 1965 and 1967 busted the 40-minute
mark.)

I only bring this up because plenty of artists could benefit
greatly by tightening up their material, and Ed Harcourt is surely
one.

You want to like “From Every Sphere” more than you
actually do. The music is nice; the songs are clever, and while the
sound isn’t quite as moody or catchy as Harcourt’s
debut long-player “Here Be Monsters,” it’s pretty
good. The problem is nearly every song on here is at least one
minute too long.

Harcourt deftly references post-modernism and “One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and draws on influences from
Tom Waits to Marc Bolan while holding affinity to contemporaries
like Rufus Wainwright and Badly Drawn Boy. Somehow, at 62 minutes
(including a U.S.-only bonus track), the album just doesn’t
coalesce. The best tracks include the groovy
“Jetsetter,” one of only three to clock in at under
four minutes, which lets Harcourt lazily wail his lyrics while not
meandering or getting boring.

The kid’s got talent; here’s to hoping he refines
it.

-Anthony Bromberg

Four Tet “Rounds” Domino
Records

“Folktronica.” Like “lap-pop,”
“sadcore” and “trip-hop,” it sounds more
like a way for journalists to stake their claim in the pop music
vocabulary than evidence of literary necessity.

To say that Four Tet, aka folktronica trailblazer Kieran Hebden,
necessitates his own genre label is overstating things by a lot.
But his third long-player, clearly his most accomplished to date
and one of the best electronic albums of the year, is the sound of
an artist who has found his perfect balance between sonic economy
and creativity.

Most reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s enigmatic ambient
masterpieces of yore, “Rounds” is the sound of that
somber downtempo groove infused with, yes, folk elements.
Tastefully added glitch and minimalist touches give “Spirit
Fingers” an otherworldly vibe, and its constantly evolving
repetition reveals endless layers of depth and sophistication.
“Unspoken,” clocking in at over nine minutes, recalls
the sparse abstraction of Boards of Canada. It’s hardly an
electronic revolution, but “Rounds” doesn’t just
appropriate the great accomplishments of the past 20 years. It sets
a benchmark for the rest of this year’s records with its
emphasis on craft over tech-happy showboating.

-Andrew Lee