A collaborative effort between Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti of tragically now-defunct avant-garde industrialists Throbbing Gristle and Nik Colk Void of ratchet clankers Factory Floor was always predestined to embody the most subversive of listening experiences. That it was recorded in one improvisational sitting in the gloomiest guts – the Studio Theatre – of Camden's rightfully esteemed Roundhouse at last year's Short Circuit bash (put on by Daniel Miller's Mute Records, the label which is of course releasing this incarnation of the incontrovertibly progressive) wholly validates its Transverse designation (or indeed epithet), its four compositions periodically simmering [...]
As sumptuous as a Bloody Mary may be on any given Sunday, the return of Silversun Pickups on this particular Monday tastes just as sweet savoury. Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings) is an intoxicating ooze of surging guitars riding high on gorgeous undercurrents of spectral vocal harmonies, soft synth undulations and Brian Aubert's soaring, androgynous screams. The track is the first to be exposed on the light box from forthcoming third LP Neck Of The Woods which is expected early May on Dangerbird Records , and intimates the Californian quartet may yet better Lazy Eye... [...]
Were you holed up in Hackney and happened to be scouring the streets for some spick-and-spanned haunt in which to conjure papier mâché masks and the like, Apiary Studios would seem a fairly safe bet. Tonight however it's been overhauled by Dollop as impromptu bars are erected in abandoned back rooms and an unorthodox dancefloor is engineered next door. Spotlights set to an irredeemably satanic shade of sanguine, opening act o F F Love provides a comparably damnable experience: his face (perhaps appositely) obfuscated by cloth embellished with yins and yangs and his torso tattooed in love bites, [...]
Rattled off onto tape – the odd set of 'bonus beats' hacked out by the Tall Firs' Aaron Mullan – and with its tracklisting definitively slashed into two distinct, single-sided portions Lee Ranaldo's Between The Times And The Tides is indubitably a record drenched in nostalgia and firmly entrenched in old ways yet it sees the Sonic Youth man at his most boyish in figurative aeons. In terms of its aural aesthetic the record sits rather snugly as a markedly '90s effort evocative of Washing Machine, a record with [...]
Fitchburg, MA four-piece Sun Sister breed the sort of dreamy breeze pop delectation this resplendent weather was made for. Or vice versa; whatever. Growing ur hair out [ sic ] sounds like Fear Of Men were Fear Of Men born atop beachy head drenched in a little more sun-shed vitamin D than those of their native Sussex, or alternatively a scuzzy return on Tennis . Lifted from four-track EP Rich American White Kidz , it's the finest sliver of lo-fi swoon since Bethany Cosentino's Make You Mine 7" and Stacy Baird's perfectly lethargic vox effortlessly match [...]
In the words of OFWGKTA fringe player L-Boy: "Once upon a time there was this group of dusty-ass motherfuckers, create lidl group for theyselves. They call theyselves Odd Future ." When not perfecting kickflips atop Californian concrete they'd flip out verbally on erratic mixtapes which went on to receive ecstatic acclaim far beyond their native State. Linguistically filthy and impulsively derogatory, interest soon evanesced leaving the future of this multimedia-molesting collective indeed odd and altogether uncertain. Such flagrant misogyny, bigotry and vitriol may be, from a rational human perspective, preordained [...]
As the hypnotic thrum of Clinic emanates from the far end of the theatre, their whereabouts initially appears puzzling. Heads of mouth agape aim off in every direction barring that of the stage, spewing inanity as they swivel. Perhaps the entrancing drones and dulcet tones of the Merseyside four-piece, dressed down in signature mutilated health care worker garb (scrubs and surgical masks as standard) are all too conducive to apathy yet such dispassionate indifference is fucking unreal. The reality is that James Mercer's glorified solo project that is The Shins , now tied up [...]
The first insight into the return of Jana Hunter's Lower Dens , Brains, proved a compulsively addictive listen and one that still commands attention today although now we've Propagation that may change somewhat. At least our impression of forthcoming LP Nootropics (alongside other formats, a rather sumptuous-sounding 'limited edition gold colored double LP with black swirl' is expected April 30th via Domino imprint Ribbon Music ) has been gently expanded... With a more memorable swell of a hook to latch onto than its predecessor, it's a typically sulky number from the Baltimore quartet that's awash with [...]
Prior to this week's release of World, You Need A Change Of Mind, although protofunk progressive Adam Bainbridge may have been lurking about in the murkiest corners of nightclubs splattered with disco ball shimmy since 2009 (the year in which geek chic single Gee Up was released on the flipside to that radical overhaul of the Replacements' Swingin' Party) his recent postmodernist visual direction for said song had perhaps been his most eminent instance. Now, having exhibited great grace in offering up his debut full-length from the giving hands of Kindness , the jittering flecks and attentions [...]
As with many artists operating within oneiric states of lo-fi, the go-to parallels for the escapist imagery conjured by the music of Dean Cercone would be Deerhunter, Animal Collective, and any and every project affiliated with the aforesaid. That his every sonic manoeuvre is documented at his parents' house in Renfrew, Pennsylvania however perhaps aligns him stylistically more with Bradford Cox' Bedroom Databank volumes than it may with the widescreen visions of Baltimore's most vivid dreamers although when the final product is quite this stirring any disharmony in such balancing of influence pales swiftly into insignificance. A quite [...]
Admired and eulogised by many ever since the balearic rhythms of Real Life beached on the internet back in 2010, the debut full-length from Brooklyn bros (phraseologically; not genetically) Tanlines has been eagerly awaited in many a corner. The track that way back when sounded akin to a diluted, or perhaps sobre Friendly Fires (affix Diet/ Zero/ Lite pre/ post) features, and still sounds like the flimsy fare hacked up by the St. Albans monotony brigade, permeated by omnipresent uhs and ohs. However the segueing dream pop disco showboating of Rain Delay precipitates the realisation that Jesse Cohen [...]
Initial exposure to Illinois art-rock outfit volcano! is a little like your first beer: irrespective of first impressions, you'll remember it for the foreseeable and it may well induce some latent addiction that's instinctively awoken by the scent of the trio's every return. Personally much of my adolescent interpretation of contemporary music was instructed by the falling of Beautiful Seizure through gaping letterbox and down previously uninstructed lug holes and, having swung vigorously at Piñata (the lead single from the Chicagoans' third full-length of the same name) all through the night its fidgety synths that wiggle and writhe [...]
Having this year unexpectedly reformed At The Drive-In for reasons of an exclusively financial nature and ahead of the arrival of The Mars Volta's latest LP next week, he of murky cotton candied hair or Cedric Bixler Zavala is to pop out another release this side of summer. Under the guise of Anywhere , Cedric can more precisely be charted everywhere contemporarily and he here joins up with Christian Eric Beaulieu of modest Liquid Indian and tripped-out Triclops! fame, Mike Watt of rather more substantial celebrity given his involvement with both Iggy and D. Boon's Minutemen, and [...]
Like a prototypal Hot Chip with all their lyrics of laying back and steel pan solos, Danish electro pioneers Laid Back are to return with Cosyland, a so-called 'mini album' that's anticipated April 16th via John Guldberg and Tim Stahl's very own Brother Music. Lead track Get Laid Back, as with all five tracks on the release, is what the pair refer to as one of many '8-track "just for fun" jam tapes' from way back when (à la 1981) and has only been lightly sprinkled with slightly more pronounced vox, bass and drumbeats since. Were Albarn to [...]
The year the dreaded € was institutionalised on mainland Europe, or that in which Glitter's glimmer faded further as he returned to the clink, or the twelve months during which partying would hit its peak if Prince's '82 single was to be believed: whatever anyone else was up to in 1999, Joanna Newsom was seemingly yet to develop that unearthly purr of hers whilst penning sumptuous instrumentals and 'making waves in the greater Tahoe-area wedding-music circuit'. Dug out from Drag City vaults, Instrumental 1999 was written in the run-up to the turning of the Millennium and, [...]
Prior to washing up here in the Port of Morrow, The Shins' fourth studio full-length and first to be named after Boardman, Oregon's port authority frontman James Mercer found himself at the forefront of many a musical endeavour. From catching the imagination tail of Danger Mouse and ringing them Broken Bells , to teaming up with Isaac Brock of nominally, similarly murine fame to soundtrack Chris Malloy's 180º South and furthermore engraving himself into the silver screen itself in Matt McCormick's Some Days Are Better Than Others, it remains rather safe to say that Mercer's been slacking [...]
As one may now fully expect of the omnipotent director of the Choir of Young Believers , Jannis Noya Makrigiannis (alongside his rotating cast of several), throughout sophomore full-length Rhine Gold rather feels like a hymnbook compiled over decades in place of a cohesive collection of stuff scribed in a minimal number of sittings. Indeed as indolent as it may be to even utter through affectionately stroked, beardy obfuscation that many moments sound as though penned by Robin Pecknold, it's a comparison that may well hound this otherwise episodically stirring release. More [...]
Sat on an East Coast chugger slugging its way up to Leeds seems as apposite a setting as any to lunge into Valentina, the eighth studio full-length from Yorkshire's perennially cherished indie rock juggernauts The Wedding Present . As the scenery smudges into one variegated whole, past endeavours and entities are abandoned in a haze of slashed rain splattered against a double-glaze and the blooming freshness to Valentina intimates a similarly carefree approach from David Gedge et al. For right from the off, from the opening barrage of drum thuddery that bludgeons [...]
Whether chastised or acclaimed, Tall Firs' latest, Out Of It And Into It is an unremittingly morose and intermittently discomforting listen, and with songs centred upon ending it all even entitled Suicide dipping Dave Mies and Aaron Mullan into the outwardly morbid, it's little wonder friends and acquaintances have been calmly questioning the pair's mental stability and with it sanity, such is the sadness within. "We're totally fine! We've got a new record out!" they jovially offer to any such perturbation, and indeed housed within a snug pub down an alley round the back of Islington's [...]
Having reconvened with Bigg Jus and Mr. Len for July's inaugural London leg of ATP's I'll Be Your Mirror , Jaime Meline (as he's known to the feds) or El-P (as he's known to both we and his new discographic home Fat Possum) again goes it alone for third studio full-length Cancer for Cure. Expected May, it's Meline's first recorded output in five years and, if second single The Full Retard may be regarded as an accurate benchmark for the record's general standard it'd seem that the sonic schizophrenia's been exacerbated if anything. I'll Sleep When You're [...]
Dots & Dashes
Avicii – Two Million
Scissor Sisters’ “Baby Come Home” Video: Watch The Band Get Animated
Yellow Magic Orchestra edit from Chrome Canyon
Beck – I Just Started Hating Some People Today
