UPDATE 23rd September 2005
New On The Chart
What do you get when you cross a couple of Swedes, some Gallic sexpot and a
Smashing Pumpkin? No, it's not the set up to some joke, its
Vanessa & The O's, and they've just released their first album
'La Ballade D'O'.
The group, whose core includes James Iha and former Espiritu vocalist Vanessa Quinones, proffer a sort of potted history of Euro pop on a single disc, ranging from brooding tracks of a 1960's vintage through
Stereolab's jolly jangle to pure straight-in-at-no.-9-on-the-Belgian-charts style pop.
While the music provided by Iha is ultimately disappointing, being somewhere between generic and a kind of studied pastiche, the star of the show is Vanessa herself.
Quinones, let's be frank, looks like a million dollars (or should that be Euros?) and drones sexily into the microphone in a Bardotesque way that's positively arresting. The best of the bunch is
'Brouhaha' which sounds like a ominously sexy
Serge Gainsbourg /
Brigette Bardot outtake with Quinones breathy French vocals, over choppy acoustic guitar, likely to promote unpure thought in 90% of testicle owners. Elsewhere
'Charlie, Charlie', is a glorious summertime sing-a-long with a hook you could catch tuna with.
Front-loaded, the album is unable to keep the quality quotient up and the songs degenerate into a collection of poorly conceived imitations. Further criticism could be levelled at Quinones, who sounds more awkward than amorous on the songs with English lyrics, the majority of which pepper the latter half of the album.
Vanessa And The O's's
La Ballade D'O' scores 6.50 and enters Konstantiranks at no. 39
RELATED LINKS
Hear the track
Plus Rien by
Vanessa And The O's here
>>>
http://www.jamesiha.org/audio/plusrien.ram
KONSTANTIRANKS 2005 (CURRENT STANDINGS)
1. two gallants - THE THROES 7.66
2. edgar 'jones' jones - SOOTHING MUSIC FOR STRAY CATS 7.62*
3. mogwai - GOVERNMENT COMMISSIONS 7.40*
4. the fiery furnaces - EP 7.40*
5. antony & the johnsons - I AM A BIRD NOW 7.38*
6. the broken family band - WELCOME HOME, LOSER 7.23
7. edan - BEAUTY AND THE BEAT 7.16
8. arcade fire - FUNERAL 7.15*
9. the white stripes - GET BEHIND ME SATAN 7.12*
10. king creosote - ROCKET D.I.Y 7.12*
11. roots manuva - AWFULLY DEEP 7.08*
12. smog - AIN'T TOO MUCH TO LOVE A RIVER 7.00*
13. mark mulcahy - IN PURSUIT OF YOUR HAPPINESS 7.00*
14. laura cantrell - HUMMING BY THE FLOWERED VINE 7.00*
15. the rakes - CAPTURE/RELEASE 7.00
16. mek obaam - YOU AND I 7.00
17. the go-betweens - OCEANS APART 6.94*
18. caribou - THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS 6.94*
19. teenage fanclub - MAN MADE 6.91*
20. amon tobin - CHAOS THEORY 6.90*
21. four tet - EVERYTHING ECSTATIC 6.88*
22. matt sweeney & bonnie prince billy - SUPERWOLF 6.86*
23. spoon - GIMME FICTION 6.85
24. whitey - THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL IS A TRAIN 6.85*
25. holopaw - QUIT +/OR FIGHT 6.81
26. thievery corporation - THE COSMIC GAME 6.80*
27. fog - 10th AVENUE FREAKOUT 6.76*
28. malcolm middleton - INTO THE WOODS 6.75
29. low - THE GREAT DESTROYER 6.72*
30. clor - CLOR 6.72
31. sons and daughters - THE REPULSION BOX 6.70*
32. lcd soundsystem - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM 6.66*
33. the clientele - STRANGE GEOMETRY 6.66
34. aesop rock - FAST CARS, DANGER, FIRE & KNIVES 6.64*
35. eastern lane - THE ARTICLE 6.63*
36. emiliana torrini - FISHERMAN'S WOMAN 6.62*
37. stephen malkmus - FACE THE TRUTH 6.58
38. cagedbaby - WILL SEE YOU NOW 6.50
39. vanessa and the o's - LA BALLADE D'O
40. brakes - GIVE BLOOD 6.50
41. beck - GUERO 6.43*
42. bloc party - SILENT ALARM 6.42*
43. sufjan steven - ILLINOIS 6.41
44. field music - FIELD MUSIC 6.41
45. jose gonzalez - VENEER 6.40*
46. minotaur shock - MARITIME 6.36
47. the shortwave set - THE DEBT COLLECTION 6.30
48. the national - ALLIGATOR 6.19*
49. momus - OTTO SPOOKY 5.53
tbr - quasimoto - THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LORD QUAS
tbr- viarosa - WHERE THE KILLERS ROAM
tbr - coco rosie - NOAH'S ARK
tbr - king creosote - KC RULES OK
The Konstantiranks archive can be found here
>>>
http://www.obner.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=9800
