The Single Life: Dick Diver, Brand New & More

Sometimes, your music just needs another voice. This can be for any number of reasons: another’s emotion or point of view to make a song’s conversation happen. A generational nod to an inspiration, or future hope. A fusing of talents, perhaps even to create that fine old rock tradition of ‘the supergroup’. Or then again, it might be just a marketing move – to get the kids and their disposable incomes aboard. There’s elements of all those in some of the sound and vision that follows. It’s probably up to you to decide the proportions.

FFS is a fine internet acronym, often used in moments of frustration. You’d might often hear it among the creation of these words. But musically it’s about to indicate a meeting of the minds that just might work. A sardonic wit, some erudition, and use of big words has marked various of the works of both Franz Ferdinand and ‘70s/’80s synth smartarses, Sparks. Together, Kapranos and the Mael Brothers may well have just supped some good cognac and discussed how clever they were, but instead they’ve made an album together, and are about to tour same in tandem. Johnny Delusional (Domino) skips along, with some stagey showbiz and arched eyebrow in the delivery. As you might expect.

The mostly synthesised swirl of Perth’s French Rockets perhaps surprisingly drew the attention of Magic Dirt’s Dean Turner – although the sometimes overwhelming waves of sound crashing over you might be an intersecting point. Stuck In A Moment (Independent) washes over you and then ebbs away, only to crash in harder again. Then, in among those layers of technology and moodiness, you’ll find Adalita being both human and grounding to the whole enterprise. Apparently in live performance, it now comes with lasers, haze, and other such effects, and is the kind of monumental music that almost calls for that approach of sensory overload. Allow your brain to melt, just a little. 

Again, if Brian Wilson calls most people will quite correctly drop everything and sing back the bits he’s arranged for you at first opportunity. This occasion’s recipients of the great man’s nod, She & Him – and thusly On The Island (Capitol) lets Zooey be suitably (typically?) wide-eyed as her vocals tropically dance around Mr Wilson’s odd innocent warmth. M.Ward noodles away in another corner of the studio, and we’d all hang around to get our copies of Pet Sounds autographed. 

Of an altogether darker place, Protomartyrs provide a cautionary tale of the rules of the music industry in Blues Festival (Hardly Art!). They need a voice that can speak of these tribulations while their music sounds the alarm, and The Breeders’ Kelley Deal is the suitable voice of experience – she outlines those guidelines with knowledge of those million things that can go wrong in a band’s life having experienced most of them, and sounding like it.

Sometimes, the second voice doesn’t actually have to be one. Colin Stetson is a saxophone virtuoso – now there’s a nice old-fashioned term for a beyond competent music. He plys that trade, along with the circular breathing through a number of other instruments with the likes of Bon Iver, and even more regularly with Arcade Fire. There he links with another of that particular extended family, violinist Sarah Neufeld, to make music of sometimes intriguing tensions. The Rest Of Us (Constellation) has their instruments colliding and combining with each other to soundtrack a movie someone might get around to making.

Like the band they are most often lazily compared to Dick Diver have a couple of voices, and also like The Go-Betweens, some of those don’t even sing, but are still somehow present in the stories the songs tell. Year In Pictures (Chapter Music) is almost a perfect title for one of their tunes. Those photos are certainly not selfies on a iPhone, more snapshots taken with an old Kodak Instamatic - curling and yellowing a bit at the edges, but taking you back to the place they were snapped every time you open that album that’s kept on the third shelf in your mum’s wardrobe. 

Still on the upswing of the rock and roll fairytale, Holy Holy have coalesced into a more formal band unit from their studio project duo beginnings – even about to go tour Europe as you read this. They also have titles that can tell a story, as well as leaving some questions to ask. You Cannot Call For Love Like A Dog (Wonderlick/Sony) is big polished pop music, seemingly predisposed to the arenas of the world than the sticky carpeted pub down the block.

It’s been six years since Brand New’s internal ructions saw them cease to be. But, such musical and/or personal differences have been put aside – or its come down to the members who will toe the line – for the sake of the, er, Brand. Mene (Fight Off Your Demons) charges and angsts in the manner that has them listed on Wikipedia with one of the descriptors being ‘Emo’. The question is probably whether their audience from last decade has found some answers to their problems, or has found a new generation of bands who reflect and express their angst more to their liking.