Tallinn it how it is

There's always a certain dread that fills my heart when I think about going on a stag do abroad. As much as I look forward to time away with good friends, resolutely devoted to drinking, I hate to think of myself as part of that awful, 'imperialistic' tradition of heading to the continent hell bent on the kind of hedonistic debauchery that often constitutes an episode of 'Ibiza Uncovered'.

I suppose it's my age but the moments I'll remember most fondly from my two days in Tallinn - the historic capital city of Estonia - will be far from archetypal.

Walking through the old town on a sunny Saturday morning was a delight, its domineering Gothic churches, medieval town houses and cobbled streets juxtaposed with Czarist era buildings that now form the equivalent of Estonia's Houses of Parliament.

Certainly too, a lunchtime trip to the Chicago bar, staffed by waitresses straight out of 80's sitcom 'Allo, Allo' (René Artois would never have been able to resist!) and also a wonderfully sophisticated lunch in our hotel restaurant, snaffled by chance, just before our flight back home to Blighty.

Wherever I travel in future years, I'm unlikely to come across anywhere so wonderfully idiosyncratic as the Depeche Mode Baar - a bar devoted entirely to Basildon's finest - playing a looping track of the band's thirty year career in a cosy cavern bedecked by signed memorabilia and flogging its own range of DM Baar merchandise.

I'm not even a Depeche Mode fan - or at least I wasn't until now - but the obsessive devotion required for such a ludicrous endeavour can't help but breed joyful appreciation in anyone who comes across it. Needless to say it acted as a welcome safe haven from which each day's drinking was ultimately to springboard, and when a song came on we actually knew? Well you can imagine the joie de vivre.

This isn't to say we were completely immune from the stereotypical and I was certainly vocal in insisting we spent Saturday afternoon camped out in O'Malley's Irish bar in front of screens, not only showing the Chelsea game, but both the Man Utd and Spurs matches simultaneously (as a married father of one, such an opportunity was too good to miss).

My defence, is that I always felt, wherever we laid our Tripodian headwear, we were never guilty of trying to impose our will on Tallinn.

When confronted by a karaoke bar full of loutish students insistent on their umpteenth rendition of Green Day's Basket Case that hour, we hastily retreated to the relative sanctuary of a nearby watering hole, where to our delight, there was a performer setting up with guitar and microphone. Understandably buoyed by our serendipitous discovery, we put in a familiar request. As the Big O's 'Pretty Woman' came warbling through the room, we knew it was game over. We were in that bar for 4 hours.

This local performer probably hadn't had such a receptive audience in years, especially judging by his slightly alarming top notes and penchant for a false start. This sweet chap, who apologised for every bum note, gave us an unexpected night to cherish. I'd like to think we gave him one too. When I offered him a drink between sets, I was delighted with his succinct response - "Gin!".

It was a remarkable weekend and one fully deserving of the 'stag'. There's no doubting the copious amounts of alcohol consumed but I'd like to think that even the most unforgiving local would have appreciated the camaraderie on display, not just between members of the group, but also between our group and the unique ambiance of Tallinn.

The truth is in there...somewhere

Getting to the real 'truth' of any matter debated in our newspapers, on TV or online, is an incredibly difficult task. Just watch any debate on Newsnight, Question Time or 10 O'Clock Live and you'll hear a number of seemingly valid viewpoints that leave you merely wondering who you should believe.

Take the ongoing debate over the UK's public spending cuts: According to the Government, without attempts to reduce our spending we are likely heading towards a Greek style economic meltdown.

Those on the left, alternatively argue that reduced spending and widespread cuts will likely send us heading towards an Irish style economic meltdown.

It's no wonder so many are turned off by politics. As a species, humans like debates to be black and white, narratives to feature clearly defined goodies and baddies. However, true to my contrary nature, it's the need to 'analyse' all this rhetoric which I'm finding fascinating.

So who is right on the whole economic debate? Quite frankly, I just don't know. The truth, most likely, lies somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.

In the recent UK Budget, George Osborne reduced his 2011 economic growth predictions from 2.1% to 1.7% but this hardly seems like a justification of the Labour naysayers, at least it's not enough of a revision to prove that the Government's course of cuts is definitely damaging recovery. It may be slowing the recovery of course but we'll probably never know one way or the other.

As much as I hate to say it, all the evidence suggests to me that, for a period at least, it probably would be advisable to reign in the spending. However, this doesn't necessarily mean we need to go about attacking the public sector in the manner in which the Coalition are currently.

Knee-jerk reactions hardly ever seem advisable in any walk of life, yet this is the impression one gets of the current policy, plus it's who the cuts affect, and the potential political agenda associated, that causes the greatest concern.

Of course, I, like so many others, haven't provided a valid alternative to cuts here (although raising taxes and larger levies on the banks are obvious alternative fund raising methods).

So where does this leave us with our quest? Often in the search for truth I resort to instinct, an instinct which I'm well aware can lead me down the garden path, so when faced with this web of uncertainty, it only emphasises the need to treat all commentary objectively.

It's an obvious truism but socialists, no matter how much I might admire their political leanings, can sometimes paint distorted pictures just as well as any elitist Tory.

In other words, trust no one. Least of all yourself.

Album Review: Let England Shake - PJ Harvey

*****

Sneak home and pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go - Siegfried Sassoon

Let England Shake certainly owes much to the war poets, conjuring as it does horrific tales of young men cast into the hellish nightmares of trench warfare.

However, whereas it would be all too easy for these 12 tracks to descend into cliché, in fact, and against the odds, PJ Harvey has crafted a work that not only sits as a tactful testament to the fallen but is a fitting tableau of humanity's multi-faceted struggle against self-destruction.

Throughout the album, the presence of nature is felt very strongly, the massacre and the killing inked indelibly onto the landscape, whether the stench of death "coming off the mounds of Bolton's Ridge" or the "Jagged mountains, jutting out, cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth."

On Battleship Hill, from which that last line is taken, is perhaps the most interesting track in this regard, not merely lamenting the cruel nature of man but also championing humanity's resolution (or is it begrudging war's futility?); eventually, despite the devastation, "The land returns to how it's always been."

It's also possible to draw parallels, not only with Iraq or even the current conflicts in the rest of the Middle East - "What if I take my problem to the United Nations", stolen from Eddie Cochrane on The Words That Maketh Murder - but with the global population's ongoing battle with Mother nature, whether that be climate change or other natural hazards beyond human influence.

Neither does Let England Shake deny the inherent romanticism of war, especially on All And Everyone, where the lines, "As we advancing/In the sun" ring out against a melodramatic musical backdrop that, to me, evokes images of the final scenes of British sitcom Blackadder Goes Forth.

It's evidence of Harvey's particular genius; not merely pedaling the truism that war is bad, but also empathising with man's plight and never assuming a moral high ground.

Of course, the album's other main theme is the resonance of England's chequered past. Harvey's relationship with her homeland is clearly troubled, at first appearing to romanticise the "battered books" and "fog rolling" on Last Living Rose but in the next breath clearly lamenting its "stinking alleys" and "drunken beatings".

This is revisited on the straightforwardly titled track England, the weight of a nation's failings leaving a 'bitter taste' but like 'roots from a vine', the connection with her homeland, for all its faults, is constant. "To you, England, I cling/Undaunted, never failing, love for you".

It's a tightrope that Harvey walks with Let England Shake but it's too her great credit that the subject matter is handled in such a delicate, ambivalent way as to truly replicate the complexities of war - the line between right and wrong being often blurred in extremis and our loyalties to each other and our country questioned at every turn.

He's from Barcelona

I've just finished reading Russell Brand's second book(y wook), a brilliant and, at times, touching insight into his debauched world, but one chapter, entitled 'He's From Barcelona', opens with a passage that particularly tickled my fancy.

I think it might just sum up everything that's so brilliant about him whilst at the same time displaying many of the qualities his detractors so love to seize upon...

It was the biggest media event since Princess Diana died. An event that received as much news coverage as the mysterious death of the most famous woman in the world. When it happened it was blown up like 9/11. It was on the front page of every newspaper, every day, for almost a month. Every television news broadcast opened with the story. Twenty-four hour rolling news channels rolled with the news for twenty-four hours. It was analysed, debated and contested by an entire nation. Even the country's leader, the Prime Minister, was involved when it was discussed in the Houses of Parliament. What was it? A prank phonecall. And who done it? I did.

Album Review: Hotel Shampoo - Gruff Rhys

****

Gruff Rhys is a busy man. When not fronting Super Furry Animals - nor promoting side project concept albums in tribute to bankrupt 1980's car manufacturers - he's producing short films and an art installation, the latter based on all the shampoo products he's acquired from various hotel rooms over his touring life.

So provides the inspiration for the title and artwork of Gruff's latest solo album, initially intended to be a collection of piano ballads but materialising into something much more diverse, an eclectic mix of influences from Caracus to Camarthen.

Perhaps more importantly though, the Welshman's penchant for delicate melody makes a return to prominence. Nowhere more so than on Honey All Over - a sugar-coated delicacy of a song - matched only by the exquisite Vitamin K and sublime If We Were Words (We Would Rhyme).

There's an understated charm to the album, not brash nor brazen in any way, a soulful companion with whom you feel comfortable and content, yet remaining musically vivid and harbouring a playful joie de vivre that masks its sometimes melancholy lyrics.

At all times Gruff Rhys' personality exudes forth, particularly in wonderful lines such as "tummy full of tumbleweeds" but also in the way he makes use of humour. Take this Guardian piece on how he wrote Sensations In The Dark by way of example.

By the time Space Dust #2's call and answer duet has washed over you - "You upped and left without warning/I had to work in the morning" - and Patterns of Power has imparted its piéce de rèsistance, you simply find yourself marvelling at the fact all this artistry can be traced back to a collection of hotel toilets.

Only in Gruff Rhys' hands would this turn out to make perfect common-sense.

Album Review: Computers and Blues - The Streets

****

I must admit I'm a late adopter when it comes to The Streets. Whilst Mike Skinner was making his greatest impact, back at the turn of the century, I was far too enthrall to The Strokes led, NME coined, 'New Rock Revolution' to appreciate him.

Over the following decade however, my respect for his talents has burgeoned to the point where I have finally invested in an album, financially as well as emotionally...

Computers and Blues is an impressive mix of skilled word play and dry observation, but on the face of it, Mike Skinner's earnest philosophising could be seen as bordering on the trite. "If you're going through hell, keep going" he opines unhelpfully at one point, channeling the vocals of Robert Harvey - The Music front man and omnipresent force throughout the album. Nothing to challenge Nietsche there you'd be right to think.

However, for every excruciatingly overwrought 'epiphany' - the likes of which are found again on Roof Of Your Car - there's a moment where Skinner's honest and straightforward touch really does make its mark.

A Blip On A Screen, for example, benefits from a stark and touching simplicity, describing a new father's emotion on first seeing evidence of his unborn child - "I fix and I plan/but this is just mad/I love you/You're only 100 pixels on a scan."

Puzzled By People offers further glimpses of inspiration. "You can't Google the solutions to peoples feelings" seems such an obvious remark to make but belies a hidden insight.

Of course, the appeal of Computers and Blues isn't just the underlying theme of survival in our technologically fraught world, there's the heady mix of tunes that add dynamism to Skinners peons on modern life.

We Can Never Be Friends inevitably lends itself to comparison with Dry Your Eyes and, in fairness, it doesn't fall far short; another heart wrenching tale of love lost and the strength required to accept the harsh realities of such.

At the other end of the spectrum, Trust Me is an urgent, grimy and beat laden affair. It's hard not to fall for Skinner's witty whimsy found in lines such as, "I see Alice in Wonderland/I see malice in Sunderland" which sound anything but the work of an act nearing retirement.

Alas, retirement is inevitably where this album finally rests its focus and, once closer Lock the Locks fades from the speakers, it's all too clear that the UK music scene will be much the lesser for The Streets departure.

Whatever Skinner turns to next, The Streets lasting legacy will undoubtedly be the ability to marry thoughtful word play, witty observation on modern life and mass popular appeal. No mean feat.

Album Review: Valhalla Dancehall - British Sea Power

****

Valhalla - (Norse mythology) the hall in which the souls of heros slain in battle were received by Odin

With Valhalla Dancehall, British Sea Power have succeeded in demonstrating both their virtuosity and ingenuity.

Who's In Control opens the album with a rallying call to arms, wishing protest "was sexy on a Saturday night" and proudly questioning the status quo.

Georgie Ray is inspired by a combination of George Orwell and Ray Bradbury dystopian nightmare and boasts the most joyously piercing guitar solo heard in many a moon; the song's message captured perfectly in the passage, "Before the language gets perfected to a solitary grunt/Can we still sing electric on the sun?" - Wonderful.

Stunde Null, the German language equivalent for 'hour zero' - and more specifically used to refer to the fall of the Nazi's Third Reich - clears the decks with a raucous cacophony of guitar and, whether intentional or otherwise, acts as a portent symbol of the forthcoming change in the album's approach.

From here on in, British Sea Power are determined to harness every single weapon in their armoury. Mongk-II is all woozy vocals coming on like a long, lost rock standard; Baby is a delicate slow burner with a plinky, plonk piano motif; single Living Is So Easy boasts memorable opening gambit, "Oh my God did she look cute/At the Dame Vera clay pigeon shoot", a line so distinctively British Sea Power that it only serves to underline their unique idiosyncratic genius.

As masterful as this band undoubtedly are, it's hard not to feel a little disoriented by it all - and that's before the dual epics of Cleaning Out The Rooms (another ode to starting afresh) and Once More Now have come to pass. As a result, quick fire nuggets such as the magnesium burn Thin Black Sail and the astronomical Observe The Skies seem to unjustly lose their impact.

It's a minor criticism however. Rather we should all be grateful for a band, and an album, of such range, reference and riotousness. Odin would no doubt approve.