Review: Shamir, 'Northtown'

With a flamboyant bravado to compliment the range of his influences, Shamir has crafted an extremely exciting debut EP in Northtown. The 19-year-old singer-songwriter from Las Vegas effortlessly blends pop-song sensibilities with house influences whilst staying true to pop and funk elements from his spiritual home in the 80's. Through all this, Shamir is able to bridge the gap between what should be listened to with the utmost attention and what should be danced to without care.

When sitting down to listen to Northtown, its minimal production is strikingly apparent. What is also worth noting is how appropriate this is. On the opening track If It Wasn't True we can hear a multitude of different styles. Treated poorly, this concoction of an 80's Grace Jones-esque bassline superimposed over a house beat, with a melodic and percussive keyboard arrangement, could become too dense and oppressive. The light-handed production does not allow this to happen and so saves the track from becoming just another mind-numbing house tune that thumps you around the ears. The production style allows the complex electronic arrangement of If It Wasn't True to shine through. This can also be said for the loop-heavy Sometimes a Man. Most of all though it allows Shamir's natural and soulful voice to shine through as the standout component of his sound. It never seems like he is trying too hard when singing. Like the record, there doesn't seem to be much effort going into the powerful subtlety of his voice, a voice that's androgynous without becoming sexless. It is hard to invest so much personality in a voice but with Shamir it comes across so naturally.

Different tracks on the EP show off different facets of Shamir's voice and personality in great contrasts of style. Vocally, Sometimes a Man is able to give off a forceful desperation bordering on melodramatic. This leads into the confessional ballad 'I'll Never Be Able to Love which continues the melodrama but in a more elegiac tone. Showing again Shamir's 80's sensibilities, the song harks back to Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U as well as Whitney Houston. But then at 2:10 minutes a cascade of dubstep falls over the track. Amazingly, however, the vocal isn't overpowered and remains the centerpiece of the track. The dance influences are integral to Northtown and give it a bit of edge and coarseness but they never detract from the overall quality of the songs or the vocals. They are subtle for the most part and even when the sirens are blaring on Sometimes a Man, the quality of the composition is not depleted.

And it is the composition of the songs that makes Northtown such an exciting debut. For all the genre-blending and near-subliminal production, if the songs weren't stellar 'Northtown' could have easily slipped under the radar. It is Shamir's appreciation for a well-crafted pop song that really makes the record take off. Such appreciation resonates in the cover of Lindi Ortega's Lived and Died Alone. An already simplistic song in its arrangement on Ortega's Tin Star, Shamir strips the song to its bare bones. With just a guitar and voice, the bittersweet quality of Ortega's song comes through with a sparse and ethereal quality not so pronounced on her version. At the same time, Shamir's own songs stand up alongside the cover. This cannot be said for the majority of debut EPs. In this respect, he is more than just an emerging pop/dance act but an emerging singer-songwriter with true quality.

Rating: 8/10

Listen here for Shamir's track If It Wasn't True.

Is the NHS falling into private hands?

With talk of EU-US trade private trade deals on healthcare and private investment in cancer care, many on the left fear that the privatisation of the NHS under a Tory-led government is imminent. Unite have gone so far as to refer to recent EU-US deals as the first step in the “Tory drive towards privatisation.” In the run-up to the 2015 general election, the Tories are being shrewd in their handling of the problems facing the NHS and continue to flag up faults in the system without taking major action to remedy them.

Yes, the Tories have been giving themselves a pat on the back on the basis of statistics that indicate a decrease in A&E; waiting times. However, the House of Commons library has revealed these claims to be “simplistic” and are contradicted by better data sources. Not only does this reveal that Tory claims are simplified but also that they are superficial and false. Such false claims are a ploy by the Conservatives to convince the public that they are trying to fix the NHS. And through individuals such as Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who can still shamelessly proclaim to be the “patients’ champion”, the Tories can bolster the illusion that they are doing everything they can for the NHS.

In the meantime, newspapers such as the Daily Mail and the Telegraph shift blame away from the government and turn attention to the supposed failings of the NHS itself. Criticism has focused on numerous aspects such as the 18-week waiting period for routine operations,incompetence on the part of NHS watchdog Monitor, the NHS’s expenditure on cosmetic surgery and the lack of cancer referral from GPs. Hunt’s slandering is far more dangerous though. His public rebuking of GP practices that do not refer enough patients for cancer care and “poor” NHS trusts has created a name-and-shame mentality. A crafty political tactic indeed. On the one hand, Hunt is able to continue the facade that the Conservatives are working in the NHS’s best interest. On the other, in smearing the NHS, the Tories are able to pass the buck for the NHS’s performance onto staff, CQC and Monitor. Funding cuts, which saw a decrease in 4000 senior nursing posts and an increase in pay for executive directors by 6 percent, remain unmentioned and are conveniently left in the dark.

Amid all the criticism, one fact has shone through. The NHS cannot continue to expand stably without greater funding. In some ways, it’s almost as if conservatives wish to portray a state-funded NHS as a lost cause. This may seem melodramatic but when the Telegraph remarks that the NHS “doesn’t have a prayer,” it is hard to imagine that conservative thinkers are remaining impartial on the subject. When Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb, the Minister of State for Care and Support, described the NHS as a“blackhole”, the Mail were quick to jump in.

The Mail raised the possibility of patients having to pay for some services or a raise in taxes thus generating further doubt over the stability of the service. Neither of the options are popular, especially the latter. This is evident from the unpopular Labour proposal to increase national insurance by a penny in a similar fashion to the one percent rise during Gordon Brown’s tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer. That being said, the idea of paying for services is hardly popular either but funds need to be found somewhere. This in turn opens the door for private deals being made in the NHS.

This is not entirely new. Under New Labour, private finance incentives were responsible for the building of 101 new hospitals. However, under new propositions from the Tory-led government, cancer care could fall under private contracts in a £700 million deal. The agreement would stipulate 10-years of private firms providing cancer care at four NHS clinical commissioning groups in Staffordshire. This deal would then see the outsourcing of £1.2 billion of taxpayer-funded resources to private firms such as Virgin, Care UK and Ramsey Health. Whilst this deal would only place four clinical commissioning groups under private control, it is thought that this may be the first conquest of NHS resources in a piece-by-piece approach to privatisation. This sort of speculation is fair and not unjustified. Unite again warns that the secretive EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) could also spell the irreversible privatisation of the NHS. Irreversible is the key word here. As well as increasing the power of multinational investors such as big businesses and hedge funds, investors from US healthcare multinationals and Wall Street can sue the UK government if European governments try to reverse investments made under TTIP.

Whilst such EU-US trade deals are under control of the European Commission, and although Ignacio Garcia Bercero (director of the USA and Canada division of the European Commission) has reassured Labour that EU member states will still be able to manage their health systems, there is some doubt over whether Cameron’s management of private investment would be in the UK’s best interest. It seems as if the NHS’s fate will be decided post-general election. Whilst Bercero assures NHS safeguarding, the prospect of foreign investment from the US and domestic investment from the likes of private firms may be too tempting for Cameron to pass up. With papers like the Mail criticising the money spent on cosmetic surgery and procedures to tackle obesity, Cameron has been given a rationale that state spending has not been frugal enough, the non-partisan watchdog Monitor is not up to the job and that only private hands with private investment can keep the NHS from collapsing in on itself.

Kasabian - Victoria Park, Leicester – 21.06.2014
supported by Beardy Man, Zane Lowe (DJ Set), Jagwar Ma and Rudimental (DJ Set)

“LEICESTER! LEICESTER! LEICESTER!”
“WE HATE YOU NORTHERN BASTARDS!”
“WHO THE FUCK ARE LEEDS?”
After an hour in Victoria Park, I soon realised that these phrases, shouted by the Leicesterians that made up the 50,000 in attendance for Kasabian’s open air homecoming, were becoming the mantras for the event itself. They kind of gave Victoria Park a voice with a Leicesterian accent that was making me very glad I decided not to wear my Leeds Celtics American Football t-shirt. I concede that at first I felt like I was intruding on the city of Leicester; a two-hour train journey being my method of invading a celebration for the whole of Leicester. Still, under the June sun and the wave of sound from the self-deprecating “small, diminutive Jew” Beardyman, I started to really feel like it was the summer solstice. Ok, it was the Nandos I had a few hours earlier that made me feel summery but Beardyman helped. This seemed to be the main intention behind the choice of support acts. On first viewing of the line up, I was disappointed at the number of DJ sets after such a drawn out waiting period. After refreshing the NME homepage for what feels like the billionth time, it is rather depressing to hear that the premier support act is a Rudimental DJ set. It does seem that the event organisers were merely going for a line up that was nothing to get excited about and unlikely to upstage the headline act. That being said, the support acts were enjoyable. Beardyman, with his unique brand of beatbox-tinged dance music, was a particularly pleasant surprise.

After the fit-for-purpose support acts had vacated the stage, the crowd at Victoria Park were treated to something I had never seen at any show before. It was a sight that took my breath away. Relating this is enough to bring goosebumps to my skin and a sense of an impending awesomeness I cannot describe. This is a feeling that can only be brought about by one thing: a fucking massive pink digital clock, the campest piece of equipment I have seen onstage at a concert since Steel Panther’s makeup bag. Superimposed on the pink backdrop in thick black text was “48:13:00”. In another first for me, Kasabian actually did a countdown to their emergence onstage. Well, if the four support acts didn’t create a buzz then this did (as well as letting me know I had enough time to go to the lavatory before the set began). When the clock read “00:00:00” and a few awkward seconds Kasabian entered in front of an eager hometown crowd and kicked off with 48:13 gem ‘Bumblebee’. It’s noticeable how well the newer material stands up against the older canon when played live. The rave-tinged crowd-pleasers on 48:13 seem to offset the darker work on Velociraptor! ‘Days are Forgotten’ is quelled by ‘Eez-eh’ in the same way that ‘Re-Wired’ – a particular highlight of the set – eases into ‘Treat’.  

Kasabian’s set is really well worked out. ‘Shoot the Runner’ (preceded by the intro to ‘Black Skinhead’), ‘Club Foot’, ‘Fire’ and set closer ‘L.S.F’ go down a treat (sorry for the pun) and fill the necessary sing-alongs and la-la-la niche.  Along with the good time anthems to make your lungs ache, the aggressive guitar and bass-driven ‘Switchblade Smiles’ and ‘Vlad the Impaler’ really remind you that Kasabian, for all their influences from everything from hip hop to Krautrock, are a rock band and when you go to their concerts you get a rock show. There aren’t many rock shows better.