Reviews of:

Lost At Sea

In a year when we've had to rely on a Jubilee Allstars singles compilation and a collection of Stars Of Heaven oldies as the finest Irish albums, Joan Of Arse's second long-player, the masterful follow-up to last year's "Le Remuement Trite et Lent de la Queue d'un Vieux Chien", is a desperately needed artefact. While its predecessor had a scratchy, forlorn nobility, "Lost At Sea" is a record packed with beautiful fully-blossomed nuggets of intelligent angst, wit and excellent musical ideas. Jeanne d'Arse's lyrical touch is more alive than ever with the best lines and titles and impossibly fine details of messy, sticky, drunken weekends. He uses the sea as his guiding metaphor - stormy, calm, engulfing, vast, journeying, time-suspending, aging. Jeanne's voice curls around the speakers and the ears like the warm breath of a jarred uncle and his bittersweet past. "You Always Find Me In The Toilet At Parties" proposes the sound of the Dirty 3, with gypsy mandolin replacing the gypsy violin. There's a funkiness about the whole album that wasn't present before - like the way "How Much Has Ended Here" almost breaks into an atomic piano boogie and then unleashes a buzzing, teeth-baring organ-outro. And there's the unadulterated hand-holding pop and sweet scientific notions of "The Fusing of the Continental Plates", with JG Gollier's delicate, oh-so-versatile drums. And there's the ominous bells, the use of the word "gee-eyed", the light sprinkling (is it?) rain sample, the guitars constantly cutting out fragile jangling ripples on the surface. And the record drifts off on an ethereal blanket of My Bloody Valentine-styled radioactivity with "While I Gather Dust". Best Irish album of the year so far.

Leagues, Muse - July '99

(The reviewer would like to note that he suspects Joan of Arse is actually a male vocalist/instrumentalist and several musical accomplices, not a woman named Joan.)

Joan of Arse, you beautiful, miserable, scruffy Irish lass! So self-effacing! "You'll Always Find Me in the Toilet at Parties"-what kind of a thing is that to say? I wish you'd get out there and madly spit all of these sad, clever things in the faces of all those drunken louts with fat necks and bad hair. But you scream at me to "stay awhile!" Guess I'll just have a seat on the crapper here.

No, no, no, I think you're great. I love your warm, comforting drums. Likewise your cracked, scruffy guitars and your thin, fearful, choked voice. I love the way you've not quite got round to combing your hair or brushing your teeth. You're a mess, woman! Your pianos, your organs, your mandolins, your acoustic and electric guitars churn along, in sad death-marches like "Evidence that a Struggle had Taken Place." It's gorgeous, though. You are a pretty, sour mess. No sense in asking you to lighten up and straighten out. Aces job on ditching the rhythm section at the close, and letting the guitars spread out on "While I Gather Dust."

You sometimes remind me of Codeine--boomy, dramatic, empty; sometimes of Will Oldham-fragile, hoarse, olde-tyme; sometimes of a slowed-down, minor-key version of indie-pop bands like the Dentists, Honeybunch, Built to Spill-slowly rolling, jangly. And I happen to think that that's a neat little spread, friend. So open the bathroom door, get out there, and bring 'em all down! Alright!

Ted Pauly, Rocket Fuel - December '00

This Irish duo's admirably puerile name might become a cause for regret should their debut make the impact it ought to. Clearly enamoured of the current American post-rock/country-noir axis, they weather squally storms of shambling guitar to combine orchestral rockers Rachel's woodshed symphonic pretensions with Palace Brother Will Oldham's studied hillbilly melancholy. Buried At Sea salvages a rare beauty from it's stumbling, shaky voyage, and You'll Always find me in the toilet at parties overcomes a mandolin tuning oversight to depict a visit to the chemist's as if it were an ancient murder ballad.

Stewart Lee, Sunday Times - August '99