4.52am Issue@ 056 26th October 2017 - The Daughter Issue

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A
s you will probably notice from the start,
we are still refining our new look, and
over the coming weeks I’m pleased to say
that we will be expanding both the amount of
music we will be covering, but also the (rather
flagging) guitar content will also be getting a
much needed shot in the arm.
This week though, we take a look at Daughter’s
latest, and then journey on from there…what
can I say, it is pretty darn cool.
All at 4.52am

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Contents
Daughter ....................................................................................... 9
Fats Domino ................................................................................ 17
Learn to Play: Clapton ................................................................. 21
Learn to Play: Cream ................................................................... 23
Bing & Ruth ................................................................................. 25
Morrissey .................................................................................... 29
Lee Ranaldo ................................................................................. 31
Julia Jacklin .................................................................................. 35
Sweet Gum Tree .......................................................................... 39
Caesaria ....................................................................................... 43
La Contessa Presents… ................................................................ 47
1960s: The Walker Brothers .................................................. 49
1970s: Mott The Hoople ........................................................ 51
1980s: Dexys .......................................................................... 53
1990s: Semisonic ................................................................... 55
2000s: All Saints ..................................................................... 57
2010s: Scouting For Girls ....................................................... 59

Daughter
T
he blurring of lines between the music and video game
industries is becoming more and more apparent, and
Daughter’s latest release, a collaboration with Square Enix
the people behind such classics as Tomb Raider and Final
Fantasy is perhaps the direction we will see more and more
bands go. After all the more cerebral of them have always
worked with the film industry, so why not a score for a computer
game?
The band have jumped in and made the most of the opportunity,
creating a new album ‘Music From Before The Storm’, the
soundtrack to the film ‘Life is Strange: From Before The Storm’
which is the prequel to 2015’s Bafta winning ‘Life is Strange.’
Keeping-up?
Good.
Needless to say the album is awesome. I’m no game player (well
since ‘Elite’ on an Acorn Electron,) but I can’t imagine how

immersive this music would be as in many ways it is the band’s
most adventurous recording to date, and perhaps gave them a
low-pressure way to explore where they wanted to go next.
(Low pressure, at least musically, I hate to think of the budgets
involved in games such as this.)
Speaking about recording the album,
“We are so proud to have written the soundtrack for Life Is
Strange: Before The Storm. It was our first experience working
on an original soundtrack, and we are so honoured to have been
given the opportunity to work with the team,” remarks Daughter
singer Elena Tonra.
“We loved the story on first read as it centres around realistic
female lead characters who are emotional, intelligent, sensitive
and badass in equal measure. I think the characters themselves
have really inspired the soundscapes we have created. It was a
pleasure to be involved.”
“We wanted to have fun with this project so we made
something we felt could be a soundtrack for the characters in
the game themselves. It was also important for us to make sure
this collection of songs and pieces of music stood on their own
so we really went that extra mile. We hope players and nonplayers
alike will equally enjoy it,” notes founding member Igor
Haefeli.
The album is out now, and you can find out more,
ohdaughter.com
facebook.com/ohdaughter
twitter.com/ohdaughter
instagram.com/ohdaughter
4ad.com/artists/daughter

Fats Domino
G
rowing-up in a family where we didn’t have much in the
way of a record collection, one of my dad’s went back to
his Naval days, visiting the U.S and falling in love with
some cool music. A single Fats Domino E.P he’d brought back,
probably gave my brother and I a first taste of something
different – certainly different to the Barry Manilow and Johnny
Mathis albums my mom favoured – and it is something that has
stayed with me and probably shaped what I listen to ever since.
It didn’t hurt of course that ‘Blueberry Hill’ got a regular run out
on ‘Happy Days’ even if it was a sad loser-in-love forever singing
it.
Hearing today that Fats Domino has gone, left me sad, not just
because another legend has left the building, but because he
took a little bit of my childhood with him, and that I never got
the chance to hear him sing live.

Learn to Play: Clapton
B
Y now you have probably guessed that I quite like the
idea of us all having a few classics under our belts. I never
really bothered in the past as I was far more interested in
writing my own songs, but even a pseudo-snob like myself
sometimes has to recognise that people like what they like and
sub-80s flange-fests maybe aren’t the thing around the
campfire.
This week then I thought for a start we’d have a look at ‘Layla’ in
both its forms, as who won’t be impressed by that?
No really, I mean…

Learn to Play: Cream
B
ut of course, we can’t possibly look at Eric the solo artist
without digging a little deeper to what (in my humblest of
opinions) was his best and most import period, his time
with Cream.
Of the crazy many cool songs the band did it was always ‘Badge’
for me that I think was the most impressive, so I thought we
should at least get a strum-alonga kind of thing available for
anybody. Enjoy.

Bing & Ruth
I
f you missed Bing & Ruth’s album, ‘No Home of the Mind’
earlier in the year, now could be the time to rectify the
omission before the family pop around at Christmas and
laugh at you. Whether you did buy it or not though, there is a
second treat in store for you now with the release of an E.P of
new music from pianist David Moore (the creative epicentre of a
swirling mass of musicians) which was written alongside the
album, and features three songs that complement it perfectly.
Speaking about the Dorsal E.P which is to be released to coincide
with a European tour, Moore explains,
“as the full length came into view it became clear that these
sounds were a small family deserving of their own house
separate. So here they are. A little line in a short crest. No
meaning suggested. As is. Have at.”

The album itself took a long time to organise, each of the tracks
being recorded on a different piano over a large period of time
and travel the pieces channel the idiosyncrasies and respective
limitations of each instrument into inspiration.
“For me I feel like different pianos all have their own
personalities,” Moore says, “So in writing these new songs, I
tried to embrace the personalities of the pianos I was spending
time with.” These self-contained piano lines soon grew into
accompaniment and independent parts as the pieces were
arranged for tight five-person ensemble pieces. Recorded in just
two days at a repurposed church in Hudson, NY, in the fewest
takes possible, an attempt to capture the immediacy of classic
session-style musicianship, where one-take recordings were
a standard to keep costs down. “We had everything rehearsed,
worked out and ready to go before we ever stepped in front of a
microphone so when we did, it was like instinct coming back into
play,”
European Tour - November 2017
15 – EINDHOVEN, NL, Muziekgebouw
16 – LONDON, UK, St. Pancras Church
17 – BRISTOL, UK, Colston Hall
18 – UTRECHT, NL, Tivoli Vredenburg
19 – JENA, DE, Trafo
21 – PRAGUE, CZ, Futurum Music Bar
24 – BULLE, CH, Ebullition
26 – MAROSTICA, IT, Panic Jazz Club
You can find out more, here,
bingandruth.com

Morrissey
W
e are still leading-up to the new album, and top
excitement here on Planet 452, as there is a new
single to enjoy from Morrissey himself.
I talked about the variety of cool formats, the merchandise and
everything else last time, so I’ll just leave you to look forward to
a tour announcement, a variety of controversial
pronouncements and then the odd date cancelled due to
boredom ill health.
The man is a genius.

Lee Ranaldo
A
nother chap I have talked about a few times now is the
wonderful Lee Ranaldo, but I’ll make no apologies for
that as his album is a contender for my own personal
album of the year award. I know Morrissey had hopes, but sorry
about that. Celebrating the launch of his tour, Lee has released
another fantastic video, this time for one of the albums most
important tracks, ‘Uncle Skeleton’, as Lee explains.
The tune for ‘Uncle Skeleton’ put me in mind of those dusty old
cowboy ballads that ‘60s bands often psychedelicized. In
particular I had Papa John Phillips’ ‘Me and My Uncle’ in my
head, a track that was covered by the Grateful Dead and others.
An early video of Joni Mitchell (then still Joni Anderson)
performing the song on some old Canadian TV show stuck with
me and informed the tune I as I worked on it. The verses were
mostly written with Jonathan Lethem, my collaborator
throughout the Electric Trim album. At first his sheet of lyrics
didn’t make any sense to me, but they seems to drop into the
tune like they were designed exactly for it.

Only later did I learn that his lyrics about stripping the flesh off
the bones came directly out of the pages of his most recent
book, ‘A Gambler’s Anatomy’. The video was created by Elisa
Ambrogio, visionary singer/guitarist of the band Magik Markers.”
The feature length documentary, HELLO HELLO HELLO : LEE
RANALDO : ELECTRIC TRIM tracks the making of the album by
filmmakers Fred Riedel and Jerry Fried. The documentary is
currently touring select film festivals in Europe and the US,
screenings include Los Angeles tonight, with Lee Ranaldo, Fred
Riedel and Jerry Fried taking part in a Q&A, plus the New York
premiere at the NYC Doc festival on 12 November and the UK
premiere at Doc’n Roll festival in London on 14 November (full
details below).
14 Nov - UK Doc ’n Roll Film Festival Hackney Picture House,
London
Updated screening information available Here
Web Site Facebook Twitter Instagram Sonic Youth Mute

Julia Jacklin
B
ack in the gloom that surrounds the start of 4.52am, Julia
Jacklin was our original cover star, and it is great to see
that her career has not only survived such ignominy, but
has continued to flourish.
Just about to start a UK tour, Julia has released another fantastic
single in the shape of ‘Cold Caller’ the video of which she
describes far better than I could ever hope to,
“Over my 5 years of dancing training I accumulated about 4
dance moves, which have all been utilised in this clip. You could
say it all started here in this dance studio in my hometown
Springwood where beginning at the age of 11, I laboured and
then learned that I was not going to be a professional dancer.

Nevertheless for those 5 years I did my best; tap danced at a
casino in a high vis one-piece to ‘Working Class Man’, waved my
arms repeatedly around at an event held in a McDonalds car
park to Enya’s ‘Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)’, crammed my prepubescent
body into silver hot pants for Pink’s “Get this Party
Started”. It’s still my favourite thing to do, and this song is about
something worrying but also something incredibly joyful and all I
could think to do to express that was to dance.”
Jacklin is set to head out on her final tour of the year with huge
headline shows across the UK, US and Canada before returning
to Australia for Falls Festival. The UK tour will call at Portsmouth,
Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester and Nottingham before
culminating in Jacklin’s biggest London show to date at O2
Shepherd’s Bush Empire on November 9th 2017. Tickets are
available here and a full itinerary is below.
Jacklin’s debut Don’t Let The Kids Win, which featured favourites
“Pool Party,” “Leadlight” and title track “Don’t Let The Kids Win,”
went on to achieve stunning critical acclaim the world over
including having just been nominated for Best Female Artist at
the ARIA Awards (Australian Grammys).
Purchase Don’t Let The Kids Win:
Physically HERE
Digitally HERE

Sweet Gum Tree
O
K, let’s not beat around anybody’s bush, this is one of
the best albums we have heard this year and we are
going to be talking-a-plenty about it in the very nearest
of futures.
Channelling the likes of The Church, The Bible, The Tindersticks
as well as Belle and Sebastien and even ‘Spirit of Eden’ era Talk
Talk, ‘Sustain The Illusion’, is something particularly special.
Talking about the lead track, ‘The Gift’ Arno Sojo says,
"The Gift" was inspired by my recent experience of fatherhood.
It felt so personal that I wasn't sure I wanted to release it, but
the album producer David Odlum was aware of its wider appeal,
and a huge supporter of the song. We recorded the basic tracks
live at Black Box, with me on guitar and vocal, Romy on keys and
Elise on violin. David later added the rhythm section. I now

ealize that I managed to come up with a genuine pop song, with
an actual shiny chorus, not something I've often been associated
with in the past.
Also, it’s probably one of my best vocal performances. Besides,
I'm proud I begged Romy to play that long Philicorda outro. The
tone of her instrument and the spirit of the part felt perfect, and
this quiet minute-and-a-half where you tend to lose track of time
sounds magical.
A beautiful and peaceful way to end the song, and my favourite
moment on the album.”
Find out more,
Twitter Facebook Web Site

Caesaria
Slightly different to everything that has gone before, we couldn’t
help but fall in love with the rather brilliant Caesaria, a French
dance band with a fantastic sound. Now I may be getting on a
bit, to say the least, but I can still shake my shingle around the
place, and Caesaria were doing wonders for me.
Well, until I put my hip out.
Regardless of that I am loving them bigtime and I hope we’ll get
to have a chat with them quick smart and soon. As for the track,
‘Come on and Dance’, the band had this to say,
"This song features an Irish rapper named Sheridan. We wanted
to mix an original rock/pop song with an old school floating rap
from Sheridan, who we met recently - and we loved his flow.

We wanted to support him by putting forward his talent. « Come
on & Dance » is his first recorded music and his first music
video. Moreover, we wanted to create a real invitation to come
to dance. We wanted the EP to begin with this track because it is
the way-of-thinking, the very guide line of our artistic line.
To sum up, it's what we want to spread through our music, our
gigs, our photos… our global artistic project. We just want one
thing : make people dance and enjoy on our music".
Find out more,
Facebook Twitter Instagram Web Site Buy The Album

La Contessa Presents…
A
Nd here we are again with a trickle of genius dribbling
from the pixie ears of La Contessa as she presents us
with a platter of some of the finest songs of the last fifty
years.
From the awesome Walker Brothers, through Mott the Hoople,
Dexys, Semisonic and All Saints all the way to Scouting For Girls,
every one is a winner pop-pickers.
Enjoy!

1960s: The Walker
Brothers

1970s: Mott The Hoople

1980s: Dexys

1990s: Semisonic

2000s: All Saints

2010s: Scouting For
Girls