“Trains to Brazil”
from the EP From the Cliffs
2006
iTunes
“Trains to Brazil” is the free download Single of the Week at the iTunes Music Store (through Monday, March 27)
Some people look good on the dancefloor; others prefer to stand in the shadows. Some people want to live forever; others know all too well they won’t. And for those who didn’t buy Whatever You Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not on the first day of release during lunch hour at the Oxford HMV, here are Guillemots, who are to the Arctic Libershambles what the Beta Band were to Oasis in 1998, or what Badly Drawn Boy was to Travis in 2000– a detour away from everyday pub-rock pabulum toward something more tasteful, more adventurous.
Guillemots’ collective CVs — singer/chief songwriter Fyfe Dangerfield (no, it’s not real) and bassist Aristazabal Hawkes have formal classical training; guitarist MC Lord Magrao is a Brazillian with noise/metal pedigree– make the London band sound like a bigger mess than they actually are. Together, they make adult-contemporary/contemptuous pop music. But where the Betas and Badly Drawn Boy strove to be both eccentric and accessible at the same time, the Guillemots are more pragmatic: they release improv studio jams through website downloads, while saving the proper tunes for their major-label debut, From the Cliffs.
The approach pays immediate dividends: From the Cliffs practically tumbles down the stairs with “Trains to Brazil,“ a triumphant clarion call that’s worth a main-stage slot at Glastonbury alone. Like Doves’ stellar 2005 single, “Black and White Town,” it’s the sound of dreary, grey skies starting to bleed light, its Motown momentum undercut by a sobering bridge — “Be thankful you’re here / Because it could be you tomorrow or next year” — before blindsiding you with a brass-blasted chorus that’ll make you see stars. But in the tradition of latter-day Talk Talk or post-Kid A Radiohead, Guillemots aren’t so concerned with perfecting performances as illuminating the dimly lit space around them. Their obsession with atmosphere is felt most intensely on the slumberous nine-minute masterstroke “Over the Stairs,” which imagines Paul McCartney sleepwalking through Mercury Rev’s Catskills in the dead of night: candelabra-lit balladry haunted by spirits speaking in tongues, guided by possibly the most unsettling wind chimes ever committed to tape.
Too bad the Guillemots’ phantasmagoric fascinations go unexplored on From the Cliffs‘s second act. Instead, the swinging, dinner-party pop of “Who Left the Lights Off Baby” sounds like it should soundtrack some Hugh Grant romantic comedy (it even comes with an egregious sax solo for the credits roll), while would-be climax “Go Away” is a cod-reggae exercise burdened with a whiny, wordless chorus and an unconvincingly tough vocal from Dangerfield. But even in their most pedestrian turns, Guillemots songs abound with all manner of sublimated sonic chicanery — kettle whistles, alarm clocks, schoolyard giggles, squeaky bird noises — suggesting that something far more beguiling is lurking beneath the surface.