Bell X1’s US debut Flock earned the band incredible reviews earlier this year and the Irish trio are now primed to take on America with their most ambitious album to date. Landing somewhere a ‘little bit electronic, a little bit Bacharach and a little bit New Orleans Funeral March’, Blue Lights On The Runway, is a coherent and intriguing record from start to finish. Recalling Eno-era Talking Heads, Sigur Ros, and XTC on jagged, the album contains the vintage synth-laden Broken Umbrella, the syncopated How Your Heart Is Wired, fuzzed out hard rocker Breast Fed, the electrifying The Great Defector, and the ballad, Light Catches Your Face.
Talking Heads / Heaven
I think it’s the lack of sentimentality in what’s actually quite a sentimental song that I really like, a bit like a cat wearily singing about the end of the world. Set in the manic and wiry confines of Fear of Music, it’s a ballad, and the stripped down live version works beautifully on Stop Making Sense. This is Voxtrot’s cover of the song.
The Flaming Lips / A Spoonful Weighs a Ton
It’s the opening line, and though they were sad they rescued everyone, that gets me. It’s laugh-out-loud-sweetness. The spacey, scuzzy bombast and he-can’t-really-sing-but-I-believe-him factor was like nothing I’d heard before this album.
REM / The Wrong Child
Green was the album that was dearest to my heart when I was truly falling for music at the age of fourteen. This song was one of those I’d listen to on my Walkman in bed, and have it paint wonders in the dark: ‘Tell me what it’s like to just go outside, I’ve never been …’ Maybe Michael Stipe was trying to tell us something.
Nick Cave / Into My Arms
I feel like I’d be doing this song a disservice by talking about it. Oh, okay then. It’s the finest love song ever written, and will probably be a Christmas number one by some shrieking X Factor winner.
Radiohead / Myxomatosis
As a kid on the farm for the summers, I remember seeing rabbits with miximatosis. It was really disturbing, seeing them running into each other with their eyes hanging out. A bit of an extreme in the feeling-the-weight-of-modern-living that Radiohead do so well, but wonderfully vicious. I saw them play a small show in Dublin before this album came out, and this song was a special treat.
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss / Your Long Journey
It’s an old folk song, I believe, and is all good sung by these two. It might make them stars yet.
Buck 65 / Craftsmanship
The story of a guy who shines shoes in a train station, as his father and grandfather did before him. He takes pride in his work, and has disdain for those who just go for turnover. The groove and his delivery just sits so well. He bemoans a changing world: ‘The world’s a different place than what I was introduced to; They don’t wear shine-able shoes like they used to; Casual clothes in the office, what is this; The villain in sneakers is killing my business’.
Bon Iver / Re: Stacks
My song of the moment. Every time I listen I get a little more of what he’s saying. It’s hard to hold attention with one man and his guitar, but the swooping oddness of the tune is wonderful. It’s the perfect last song of the night, perhaps while smoking a cigarette out the window watching the cars go by.
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