Gel-Sol IZ

Upstairs Recordings are a little label from Vancouver. Every year they bring out a couple of albums, all of which in their own ways have been pretty special. By "in their own way" i mean in a rather ambient, electronica, (ugh) chilled out way. However don't misread that as boring; they're not about making lift soundtracks.

Gel-Sol is one of their newest signings and and IZ is his second album. It's quite a daring album; it has no beats, which often makes this sort of thing like listening to birds churping alongside a dripping stream on a summers day, and nothing else. For an hour. This really isn't that. Strings, Synths, Pads, little voices and thousands of electronic murmurs populate IZ, in an approach that reminds me of classical music, except this is classical music that has benefited from all the technological leaps and bleeps we've heard with electronic synthesis, although still having a natural, organic feel. Each song, well more soundscape is very carefully constructed and often mesmerising, I'm aching to use words like symphonic to describe this, but it's not classical, but it's certainly learnt some lessons from the genre.

This isn't music to listen to before you go out, but when you get home it'd be a brilliant accompaniment to the sun rising or other after dark antics. Oh and if you're one of those people who likes walking about watching the world go by with a musical soundtrack, then you're in for a treat.

Lou Rhodes - Bloom

Everyone likes being in love. It's just one of those things. It's instinctive, there's no way of avoiding it. However not everyone likes songs about being in love. Maybe they're too cheesy, or too miserable, or, well, just a bit unrealistic.

Though a lot of the time you can be in this little ecstatic bubble and spend days lying about in bed smiling and sh*t, quite a lot of the time there is something else. And it's a bit dark. It's not very often you find this balance of love and fear realistically conveyed in music, and maybe you wouldn't want to, it would probably sound a bit confused.

Lou Rhodes second solo album 'Bloom' sounds anything but confused. She manages to capture both the power and fragility of it all, sometimes just in her voice and it's pretty hard not to be drawn in and totally enchanted by it.

The album drips off (sorry) with 'Rain' which is a clear indication of the way things are going to go; acoustic guitars and drums etc. cleverly emulating the sound of rain but not in a light drizzle sense but an actual downpour. If you've heard Lou Rhodes first album 'Beloved One' some might accuse it of being a bit 'light drizzle' style folk in places (still it was nominated for the a Mercury music award), Bloom however really isn't that. There are no Lamb-esque (Lamb being her old band) electronic sounds but there is lots of Lamb-esque energy using lots of double bass and strings making songs like 'All We Are' and 'They Say' utterly epic. Don't get me wrong though its not all darkness; 'Never Loved a Man' is a sweet story, with its use of the xylophone making it almost magical. In fact all the way through they're using extra instruments that keep things interesting, complementing her voice perfectly.

I keep doing it; I keep having another listen to try give you a better description. But each time I put it on, her voice takes over and I forget about writing all together.

Portishead - Third

You know sometimes when you're surrounded by beaming smiles, people who seem so happy and so joyous that you wonder quite what it is that they've got putting them in this state. Quite often it's alchol, but sometimes it's just a genuine happiness that can leave you feeling a bit annoyed that you're not a part of. You know what i mean? Portishead singer and songwriter Beth Gibbons does. The 10 year pause in Portishead's career has done many things to their music, but it certainly hasn't make it any happier; and we're not talking "i cant get a man/woman I'm going to complain and sound a bit pathetic about it" either, "Magic Doors" (for example) is a lonesome song evoking quite dark and confused feelings; it's not uplifting, but it is very moving.

Beth's voice along with her very powerful lyrics captures the listener and will probably make them stare into space for a moment. But it's not just all about her voice. The "Trip-Hop"(whatever that was) era of the 90's has gone and we have a much more varied and interesting sound that doesn't just stick to slow beats and sensual samples that Portishead dwelled on before, though if you want that, tracks like "Hunter" do it nicely too...

"The Rip" starts off with a soft guitar riff and Portishead's signature theremin (you know the wooooo sound you've also heard in 1960s "They Came from Mars" Sci-Fi movies) and then morphs into a very warm analogue version of the same riff and really shows us how much more daring Portishead are being in the new millennium; all the music on "Third" is expertly sculpted, with all manner of wheezing saxophones, electronica, electric guitars, organs and pianos getting along and fitting perfectly with each other. Which doesn't happen every day.

"Deep Water" a sweet song almost sounding like circa 1950s blues making it quite hard not to smile along with its banjo and backing vocals, then "Machine Gun" tears through this with its very angry marching beat and strings that wouldn't sound out of place in an early John Carpenter film.

However anyone hoping for a quick fix al la "Wandering Star" is going to be somewhat disappointed, Third is an album intended to be listened to as an album, not a collection of singles and when you put the time in to do so, what a great album it is too. I only hope other people think this and it wont be another decade before we get anything else.