Before I dive into this week’s Stumble Into The Night I thought I should make one thing clear. I’ve never been obsessed with “realness”, and I’ve never cared if a band is perceived to have “Sold Out”. I’ve always held to the belief that stylistic progression should be the norm whether the band’s original supporters like it or not. So it’s with that in mind we tackle this week’s talking point:

When Did New British Music Get So Phoney?

Kanye West: Rich, Indulgent, And A Proud Representative Of Chicago

Background: Our Friends In America

I might not be obsessed with being true to your roots, but in America realness is key. Rappers strive to be real, their authenticity is derived from their roots, whether that’s skateboarding in the sun, being a gang member in LA, pushing drugs on the street, smoking weed in a shoddy apartment, or simply refusing to go to college.

No one is less popular than the bourgeois rapper, which in it’s own way is a bizarre contradiction. Nothing has defined rap more than it’s get rich quick aesthetic, rising from the streets to suburbs and escaping the roots that inform their music. It’s an odd dichotomy: capitalism and getting rich = cool; being middle class and trying to rap = the enemy.

It’s not just rap that’s dominated by realness, folk and country artists are grilled for their authenticity. It’s all location, location, location. An obsession with the homeland, a sense of displacement in the city, and a commitment to good old fashion values continue to dominate. Taylor Swift can move away and become a pop star because she has proved who she “really” is, but if you dare to be a faux-roots rocker the country faithful will slaughter you.

Indie has escaped in recent years (partly because Indie as opposed Alternative is still defining itself in America), but place is important. Sound and scene are defined by city (Seattle, LA, New York, Detroit), but art has often been at the forefront. Rock, however, is riddled with the word sell out, and tags continue to stick, moving town, let alone changing sound is enough to brand a once love band an outlaw.

Yuck: Reliving The Past

Why Does This Matter?

In the UK we’re managed to avoid this cycle. We hunt down bands who dare to overhype themselves, but we don’t tear down and attack young artists for having the wrong sound or being the wrong class (well not anymore anyway). I’ve always loved this ethos, after all, Franz Ferdinand’s debut album wouldn’t have been so much fun if it reflected the gritty streets of Glasgow rather than the thrill of the discotheque.

However in recent years, as a string of intensely derivative bands take a stab at superstardom, I’ve started to raise an eyebrow. Take the alternative revival that’s taking place. Yuck are currently ridding high in the wake of Cajun Dance Party, by transforming themselves from jerky indie to retrospective slacker-ish tones. Steeped in a 90s alternative blur they sound like a patchwork mix of Sonic Youth, Pavement, Dinosaur Jnr. and Teenage Fan Club with a smidgeon of shoegaze thrown in for good measure.

Sounds good right? Influences don’t get much cooler. The problem? Well simply put, it’s all a bit false. When you put on Yuck’s highly enjoyable debut you are immediately thrown back in time, to a different sound, from a different country. Yuck have mimicked their heroes so precisely in tone and texture that any spark of originality, and more importantly identity, has been wiped away. Yuck has its tender thoughtful moments, but the album is so non-specific that it feels placeless, a blank slab. Not informed by a scene, a town, or a person, but a record collection.

Yuck have stumbled upon the zenith of faceless emptiness. Speaking of nothing and no-one in particular, representing a time and a place that they have little or no connection to, without giving a contemporary spin or even a localised take.

Yuck do not exist in isolation, fellow Londoner’s The History Of Apple Pie are treading a similar path. Bathed in a warm haze you immediately feel yourself floating across the Atlantic, thankfully before you fly too far you feel the grip of Stuart Murdoch pulling at your feet as Stephanie Min’s vocals are as reminiscent of the thoroughly British Belle & Sebastian as they are of the 90s Californian slackers. Sadly with a sentiment as non-specifically American as “You’re So Cool” the band’s identity is derived yet again, from the bands they listen to, and the scene that they were not apart of.

It doesn’t stop there either, Fanzine are the next lo-fi revivalists coming your way. They’re heavy, fuzzier but equally anachronistic, and they are just one in a very long line of London bands in name only.

The displacement trend isn’t simply confined to Slacker Pop, I’ve found myself equally puzzled by the faux-folk trend. I’ll happily let Laura Marling slide, as no one in their right mind would accuse her of lacking an identity or a voice, but I did found myself rather puzzled when I stood in a jam packed Hyde Park last month. Mumford & Sons were working their way through an overly long but highly enjoyable set, when they debuted a new song. I’d previously dismissed Marcus Mumfords’ lyrics as painfully simplistic and frustratingly thematically repetitive but this new song struck me.

Having just informed the fervent London audience of how much their hometown means to them, the band then launched into another defiantly American rootsy-jaunt. Lyrically, the song spoke of a drought on the plains and the need for hope and rain. It couldn’t have been more American if it tried, and it struck me, that I was watching a band from the “west London folk scene”, who are in no way representative of London. The sound, the style, and now the lyrical content was American, not only in posture, but in reference too.

This was the moment when it all came together. This bizarre jumble of exciting, talented bands making music that speaks of nothing, to no one in particular, and was informed not by experience and location but by a longing for a detached sound from a different time and a different place. The greatest expression these bands aiming for is simply that of false memory. A nostalgia for a scene they can’t possibly be nostalgic for. Musical displacement at it’s most severe.

Mumford & Sons: Roots Music From West London?

Final Thoughts: Is Being A Phony All That Bad?

It’s a question that puzzles me: should we care that modern British music is so phony? Why worry if the record sounds good? Even if it means nothing, speaks to no one in particular, and was born out of longing saying nothing about our modern lives and day-to-day existence? Where is the collective, the shared experience, that essence of belonging that brings together and speaks for the living breathing 21^st Century?

I can’t help that feel we’re missing a trick, but then again, if it were a choice between the placeless reflection of Yuck and the derivative but defiantly British lad rock of Viva Brother, I’d always choose the former.

With Amy Winehouse’s death dominating the headlines all these ideas came flooding back into my head. As her tragic death served as a welcome reminder that you can reinvent the past and still mean so much to, and even define, your 21^st Century hometown.

Amy was a thoroughly modern Camden queen. Through all the nostalgia, and for all their flaws The Libertines galvanized a generation of British musicians by being so brazenly British and so obviously London. These sort of acts bring communities together not by running from the past, but by transforming the past into a sound, and more importantly a message, that is entirely modern and meaningful. We can only hope today’s retro-pop stars can, in time, do the same.

Nicolas Jaar: Unlikely Frontman

Live Review: Nicolas Jaar @Fabric

Space Is Only Noise was a sensational album. Full of sleek beats, quirky humour, jazzy inflections, found sounds, and dominated by an impeccably eerie atmosphere, it transformed Jaar from a guest Deejay to an in demand artist. To live up to expectations the French star ditched the decks and the laptop in favour of a full band for the first of two nights at London’s trend setting Fabric.

Playing extended mixes from his debut album, Jaar’s set is dynamic and beautiful. His four-piece band, mixes choppy slices of percussions, with slight soulful guitar riffs, and piercing sax solos. The long strained notes from the sax cut through Jaar’s thick beats, creating an impeccable air of solemn gloom. At his best during chilling mix of “Colomb” you can almost feel the cool imposing mist rolling off the Seine (well you could if Fabric weren’t so insufferably hot).

Jaar knows his audience well, and he samples, warps, stretches and mutates his guitar and piano lines as he, and his band, build to a series of cataclysmic lurching bass drops. He knows the crowd is here to dance and to sway, and he’s in no mood to deny them, beefing up each and every track with thick ruminating bass lines, that rather than robbing his finest works of their subtlety only serves to provide a stark juxtaposition. Contrasting irresistible grooves with sombre heart-breaking minimalism.

Strictly Our Opinion: Jaar may look nervous on stage, but he knows his audience and he is passionately connected to his beats. He, and his band, show no signs of inexperience. Rather than figuring it out as he’s going only, Jaar is dexterous; he interprets and his music evolves, creating an experience that is both hauntingly elusive in its beauty and substantially satisfying in its grooves. [4.5/5.0]