Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - The Tourist (Album Review)
Monday, 06 March 2017
Written by Ben Gallivan
In 2005, getting your music heard by listeners outside the usual mix of friends, family and local fans was pretty much only possible if you were signed. Then the internet came along and turned that theory on its head. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah made hay once the goalposts shifted, beginning with a critically lauded self-titled debut.
But, 10+ years since that release, little remains of the original line up. Originally a five-piece, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is now essentially the solo project of Alec Ounsworth after Sean Greenhalgh quit following the release of 2014’s ‘Only Run’. And Ounsworth is prolific to say the least. He’s still churning out Clap Your Hands Say Yeah records as well as releasing work under his own name and as part of the absurdly named Flashy Python. Busy lad.
‘The Tourist’ is the fifth in a steady stream of records but it presents the listener with a variation of styles and instrumentation sometimes lacking from his back catalogue. Lyrically and vocally, the record shines after extra attention was deliberately paid to those elements of the songs.
The dreamy opening tracks, The Pilot and A Chance to Cure, show that in action, with Ounsworth's weary, broken vocal style resembling Radiohead’s Thom Yorke crossed with the vocal tics of Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock.
The use of Dave Fridmann (with whom the band have worked with in the past, particularly successfully on 2007’s ‘Some Loud Thunder’) in the mixing stages becomes evident on album highlight Down (Is Where I Want to Be), with the trademark ‘everything up to 11’ approach coming through thanks to a thumping kick drum and semi-distorted bass. Following that is the shambling, drunken nursery rhyme Unfolding Above Celibate Moon, which spotlights the shifting palette that Ounsworth is capable of utilising.
“I am a relatively solitary person and seem to work best alone,” he says. “But I have to try to do something each time that’s new and engaging for me.” It’s clearly not been an easy transitional period for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, but Ounsworth appears to be thriving on it.
The pain in his voice on occasion and troubled subject matter of many of the songs still end up coming off as positive on the finished product. If it takes him another four or five years to come up with a collection of songs this strong then we’re more than happy to wait.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed September 13 2017 - BRISTOL Thekla
Thu September 14 2017 - MANCHESTER Gorilla
Fri September 15 2017 - DUBLIN Whelans
Sat September 16 2017 - GLASGOW CCA
Mon September 18 2017 - LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
Tue September 19 2017 - LONDON Village Underground
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