YUSUF AZAK Go Native

If this is your first encounter with Glaswegian singer-songwriter Yusuf Azak, your initial reaction may be who has cruelly committed this poor emphysema sufferer to tape? Yes his distinctive husky rasps, often double-tracked to emphasise the breathless wheeziness, may take a moment to adjust to, but once you've done this you'll find a man not only in rude health but definitely worth spending time listening to. Also if this is your first listen to Azak, this is actually his second album in addition to (at least) two EPs. But where you start is less important. Because in many ways “Go Native” is only a notional development to “Turn On The Long Wire”; “lighter, cleaner and more straightforward” as label Song, By Toad puts it.

Solo guitarists can fall into two distinct camps - intricate finger-picking folkies keeping it clean and authentic or those who drape everything in loops and effects and multi-instrumental trickery. As with his debut long-player Azak steers his own particular course between these poles.

‘(I Would Sooner) Fade To Love’ on the one hand is as sparse as an antique Alan Lomax folk-blues recording. ‘American Eyes’ on the other has a honey-golden glide to it created by a restrained string section-like hum behind the sharply plucked, acoustic guitar and the double- (treble-?) tracked vocals which create a cotton-wool embrace. ‘Sanctuary’ has an engaging elegance with the acoustic guitar rolled in with aching violin, and ripples of concert grand piano. Yusuf Azak doesn’t often sound like a man smiling when singing in his thoughtful knotted brow kind of way but I challenge you, once you’ve embraced that vocal style, not to be heart-warmed by the resonant yearning of ‘Smile Tactics’ or the mellotron-like friendliness of ‘Immunity Or Rescue’ or the relaxed swing of ‘Move Me Starlet’ even though the latter is quite lyrically cryptic.

IMMUNITY OR RESCUE from Salome Oggenfuss on Vimeo.

“It’s a doom-sayer’s view / salvation is nil” is the opening couplet of the title song; the following tune ‘Losing My Aim’ dances around a complex, cloudy relationship (“I’m the enemy, you’re my saviour”) but even this pair sonically never sound overly gloomy. Intense pregnant pauses and with some wild gypsy violin in the former yes but both are curiously captivating rather than engaged in certificated hopelessness.

“Go Native” feels a more confident as well as cleaner record – it is still relatively brief at 34 minutes but several of its eleven tracks leisurely stretch to 4 minutes and it adds two tracks and seven minutes to its predecessor’s running time. Like-minded and familiar to its forerunner it is true but on balance maybe the first-time listener should here. Sadly I suspect there are too many first-time listeners to Yusuf Azak out there. Please help rectify this – wherever you start.



Yusuf Azak Go Native [BUY]

JESUS H. FOXX Endless Knocking

When you come across a seven-piece band in which the cornet player is also the glockenspiel player (step forward the superbly named Tallah Brash) you rightly suspect you are dealing with artier and orchestrated end of the Scottish indie-rock spectrum. However Jesus H. Foxx’s slippery rhythms gently push against crude pigeon-holing as the slew of band comparisons they attract shows. Their last.fm biog cites Pavement and Deerhoof for their formative years maturing into Architecture in Helsinki and Broken Social Scene. Then there is this wonderful quotation from Drowned In Sound: “amalgamates The Modern Lovers’ apathetic composure with the rhythmic deviancy of Pavement”. None of these are quite satisfactory because of subtle contradictions of Jesus H. Foxx. There is a rich, lush sound on debut “Endless Knocking” that would never pass muster as lo-fi but also sparse, disjointed passages and minimal, repeated lyrical chants and phrases. The songs have a precise, studied poise but also a loose-limbed rhythmic freedom. The band remain controlled rather than giving into ecstatic abandon but there are frenetic moments – the final section of ‘I’m Half The Man You Were’ - where the seven players almost sound as though they are gloriously battling to outdo each other.


So ‘The Wind Won’t Blow It All Away’ opens with a sawing fiddle and syncopated claps like Andrew Bird fronted by Stuart Staples’ introspective mumble – it’s a great contrast of jaunty and croaky minimalism. ‘Permanent Defeat’ and ‘This Is Not A Rental Car’ take this a step further with a jazzy white-boy soul sway, almost quite tropical with their taut rhythms and cooing female backing vocals. ‘Elegy For The Good’ mimics Talking Heads-cover-Al Green - spiritual soul meets angular alt-folk-rock with sparring guitars and glistening trumpet over a limber bass-line and loose, rolling drums.

Then the delicate climbing rhythms of ‘I’m Half The Man You Were’ incorporates slightly countrified steel guitar and violin, and bursts of summery, almost African jit guitar. Upon first listen I thought “Felt meets Tom Tom Club” - another of those unhelpful band comparisons but it shows just how elusive and shape-shifting this song and others are. It then finishes, naturally, with the previously referenced battling guitar wig-out.

As the band expanded from four- to seven-piece, they also expanded the time taken to record “Endless Knocking”- finishing it apparently only to mix and then re-record and re-mix it again. Like this patient two-and-a-half-year process, the album can feel a bit too cautious and precious at times. I want the band to let rip and scuzz it up more often. So a controlled, poised recommendation rather than a delirious one fittingly - but there’s still plenty to admire in the catchy, easy-going sophistication of Jesus H. Foxx.





Jesus H. Foxx Endless Knocking [BUY]

THE LEG Eagle To Saturn

“How is this music?” was the scathing reaction of the person who interrupted my solitary and loud playing of this record. My reaction was somewhat different: “I hope this keeps its immediacy after the first listen” followed swiftly by “hang on, this reminds me of Khaya”. And to my surprised delight the screeching-with-strings of The Leg is indeed a direct descendant of 90s Edinburgh noise-niks Khaya who then begat Desc. And in fact The Leg - Daniel Mutch (banjo/guitar), Pete Harvey (cello) and Alun Thomas (drums) – are on their third album with “Eagle To Saturn“. Previous label SL Records lays out the Khaya biog here and current label Song By Toad completes the other end of the tale here.


Khaya could emulate The Pixies at their most shrieking and weird. Here The Leg channel their undiminished energy for weird shrieking into a rabid folk-punk. With cello. And where cello is often used to add elegance or gravitas, here it groans and saws ominously to add a spooky underscore to Mutch’s psychiatric ward screams and surreal lyrics. ‘Bake Yourself Silly’ (free download below) is the litmus test for whether you will get this record or not. It’s sternly confrontational and angry banjo-driven tune, with a bitter humour that is almost extinguished by the sense of menace. “There are no stitches / cuz there was no operation” many seem tame written down but the simmering, implied threat behind Mutch’s delivery makes it deeply disturbing. Elsewhere the album twists through warped moonshine blues (‘God Don’t Like It’), Swans-like brutality (‘Freda Bolt’) and over-driven, hyper-fast rant (‘Twitching Stick’). The Leg can do slow and sinister too: ‘The Birds Are Falling’ is a sludgy belly-crawl with more of that sawing cello and the distorted wails of what sounds like the unremorseful man who poisoned said falling birds.

Last year I put Desc into Obscurometer - it was given a 97% obscure rating. Khaya does slightly better at 95.5%. This record like earlier mutations of the band is not an easy listen but the real question we should be asking is: “how is this music...not better known?”. “Eagle To Saturn” provides a happy re-connection with fond memories of an earlier band for me but also a unpredictable, wilful, alarming 29 minute ride for the brave-hearted.



The Leg Eagle To Saturn [BUY]