Album Review: Late Night Venture - Pioneers Of Spaceflight

Since the year 2000, Danish post-rockers Late Night Venture have set about turning psychedelic shoegaze into art. The starting point of each song they write is always the vast, cosmic soundscapes created by Jonas Qvesel’s aching, mellifluous keys. They are the orchestral canvases upon which the rest of the band paint streaks of colour like stars across the sky. What separates the band from their peers is their refreshingly sparing use of vocals – the song always comes first and if the instruments alone are enough to complete the picture then the vocals simply aren’t given a role.

This being my first taste of the band, I did a little digging and discovered that the album was recorded completely live in the studio. Then, with the assistance of long-term collaborator Magnus Lindberg (Cult Of Luna) – the man with the mixing studio – they were able to subsequently craft the album into shape as an editor would slowly edit a film from his reams of raw material. The laborious process took them a whole year and a half, but the end product is most definitely imbued with a wonderfully organic flow, as if it was grown from the ground itself.

Søren Hartvig and Peter Lau Olsen’s vocals don’t get an airing until the album’s third track; the twinkle in the album’s eye, “Houses”. It pulses and glows, casting its emotional, introspective spell for its entire length – “Would you follow me where the waves crash?”. Everything that comes before or after is part of the journey, but “The houses by the shore” are our welcoming destination. “Kaleidoscopes”, initially rich in instrumental Junius-esque drama, marks out the vastness of the Heavens from which we fall, whilst the mean Explosions In The Sky-like pop twists of the song’s latter stages take us reeling into the gentle field recordings and tremulous strings of “Peripherals”.

No matter at which point you are in the album there seems to be two rules of thumb. Firstly, the music must be laced with Sigur Rós-esque blasts of epic melody and at some point there will be a noisome switch-up to crashing bottom-end. Take the gentile openings and powerful closing of “Birmingham”, dull and dreary at its outset, it’s a track that is soon imploding around us. So much attack and release can become a little nauseating, but here it all seems to be fastidious preparation for the angry, repeating action of “The Empty Forest”. Where there’s a lull in proceedings, such as the slower drift of tracks like “Glitterpony” with its vinyl crackle, and “Hours”, a slower reprise of The Cure’s “Close To Me”, there are the counteracting 65daysofstatic-esque dance beats and crushing synth markers that drive both “Trust” and “Carisma”.

Yes, it seems perfectly reasonable to view Pioneers Of Spaceflight as a series of musical paintings. Undoubtedly, all feature immense beauty with stunning use of light and shade and all are gloriously textured, but there is a suggestion that the artist’s dedication to this one theme has resulted in a body of work where each piece bears too strong a resemblance to those of its neigbours. Fans of post-rock’s soft and airy style are the ones who will see past this and adore the work of Late Night Venture. Souls of a darker nature may find it harder to accept so willingly.

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Album Review: Moby - Last Night

Finally released to a UK audience (Australia got first dibs back in late March) album number nine sees Moby returning to the upbeat groove he plundered so successfully on 1999’s ‘Play’ album. This one takes the theme of an all-night party in New York and allows us to join the conga line as he and his various guest MC’s pummel you with delightful disco beats and effervescent keyboard trills.

There’s no pause for breath, no subtle intro; you are going to be up dancing on the first beat as the repeating theme, the sweet soul singing and the steady funk beat of opener ‘Ooh Yeah’ hits. There’s a dark change in the middle which allows for, ah yes, there it is, the return of the dance theme. This is so formulaic, so precise, but oh-so-wonderful. Ah, Moby, with this delightful electro hedonism you are really spoiling us! It’s followed by the pulsing soft-sway of ‘I Love To Move in Here’ with snatches of crowd-cheer and topped off with the rap-back of MC Grandmaster Caz, co-writer of the classic ‘Rapper‘s Delight‘.

Much of the album is rooted in club nights past and should therefore appeal across the board. ‘Everyday It’s 1989’ is my cringe track as it takes me straight back to those uncomfortable teenage moments of the day. Raving like the screech of Black Box, it’s swimming in memories, smarting with sunshine, but repeated plays reveal a sickly sweetness that’s just a little too strong. For others it’ll be something else, no doubt. The hip-hop of 419 Squad’s guest vocals on ‘Alice’ is all lurking bass, grime and guts and is the pimp to the glamour whores of ‘Hyenas’ and ‘I’m In Love’ with their smoky, sensual vocals. They shimmy but they lack the razzmatazz that Moby usually nails on so effectively and will help most fall into their chill-out chairs a little too early.

‘Disco Lies’ will have you up again strutting your stuff, as our favourite forty-something self-confessed simpleton properly gets his groove back. ‘The Stars’ will keep you on your feet, a euphoric anthem of nostalgia with pistoning bass drum and hi-hat work, a mashed piano and just a pinch of latin thrown in for good measure. Then it all gets too much and we are forced to crash out again as ‘Degenerates’ drags the whole thing into a melancholic warping wash of industrial noise. If you want chill-out “choons” to properly enlighten then hook yourself into the shifting sands of ‘Sweet Apocalypse’ or the sultry jazz vocal of Kudu’s Sylvie on ‘Last Night’.

Despite the glorious highs this album won’t be quite the classic everyone was hoping for. It doesn’t define its respective genres but allows us a retrospective glance back and a wry smile. Perhaps a better way to put it is this; joining Moby on his clubbing tour of NYC has been fun, but it hasn’t changed my life or made me crave a repeat visit.

Film: 30 Days Of Night

Adapted from the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, 30 Days Of Night whisks us to Barrow, the most northern town in Alaska. Bleak, barren and freezing, only the hardiest of souls can survive in such an environment. As the sun falls below the horizon for the last time for 30 days, the first of many brutal killings alert the townsfolk that they’re not alone.

Eben (Josh Hartnett), the town sheriff, is handed the task of protecting his own and in the middle of the mayhem he manages to get as many as possible holed up in a hidden attic from where they view a killing spree initiated by a large group of particularly brutal Nosferatu hell-bent on the town’s complete annihilation. “Their heads must be separated from their bodies. Do not turn them”, drawls head-vamp Marlow (Danny Huston).

The director, David Slade, has made a good attempt at translating the grim novel from page to screen and employs some clever camerawork in places. The overhead pan as the vampires attack their victims is particularly effective; a bird's-eye view of bright-red blood stains on pure-white snow, gun shots fired aimlessly, and dark figures fleeing and chasing; an eerie detached way of viewing the carnage. Unfortunately, he subsequently allows the continual doom and gloom to suffocate the film without respite.

There are some particularly gruesome effects and, in places, the make-up work is terrifying. Danny Huston’s is particularly effective as he’s transformed from everyman into the worst kind of walking nightmare. Barrow's isolation from the world certainly comes across well as it slowly becomes a ghost-town, resembling scenes from a Western only with snow in place of dust.

The casting of Josh Hartnett is both a blessing and a curse. He’s particularly adept at depicting the off-camera horror in his face but, in general, having a well-known actor for the lead detracts from the impact of the film. Ben Foster, bringing a particularly nasty evilness to his role as The Stranger, and Mark Boone Junior (Beau Brower) were both deserving of more screen-time.

It’s, at first, a particularly intense and effective vampire chiller, but eventually it ends up overwrought, wallowing in its own bleakness, and lacking in innovation. The final nail in the coffin is the ending which is both rushed and inconsistent. Those 30 days have passed and I still haven’t seen the light.

© Johnskibeat

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