Kurofune

By The Black Ships

I'm going to be straight with you. I love this EP. Not because it is one 25 minute long track, not because it is a largely unintelligible stack of music verging on white noise throughout, not even because it is a free download- though all of these are true. It is because it sounds like the Verve of a Storm in Heaven and Northern Soul fame- a grandiose, dark and mis-shapen beast in complete contrast with the over the top balladry of Richard Ashcroft. This is hardly surprising- two of the Black Ships' line up were in the original Verve line up- guitarist Nick McCabe and Bassist Si Jones.

'Kurofune' EP is divided into three distinct movements none of which have titles. The first is the obvious single, or at least it has lyrics and a melody, the second a selection of white noise, angular guitars, ambiance and beats (think UNKLE), the third an American ranting about economics and inflation which reminds me of God Speed You Black Emperor!, so it's very much marmite music. You might love it, you might hate it- I love it, but I understand if you violently disagree with me.

My advice? Download 'Kurofune' (it is free) and if you like it go out and buy 'A Northern Soul' by the Verve- it really is one of the great albums of the 1990's, and shares more with this album than anything the Verve have released since.

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On 12th July 2011 at 12:02 Anonymous 17007 wrote...

I agree with you to a point, this is intelligently crafted music however the stereotypical comparisons to Verve and 'A Northern Soul' is an all to easy journalistic route to follow. For me this explores different ground and although it has the distinctive melodic bass groves of Jones and swirling guitars of McCabe it has a disjoined feel underpinned together with erratically beautiful violin of the very talented Rossi. This music explores the darker feelings and is not for the easy listening crowd more of a personal trip.