There's nothing quite like a punningly alluring nom de plume and whether that be Joy Orbison or Com Truise, it coats a first impression in an albeit superficial patina of further intrigue. Were I to forge a band right around now, I'd probably go with Waste Coasts and in keeping with wordplay of a wry sartorial theme here's Calgary outfit Lab Coast . Unabashedly schooled in the Bradford Cox school of slackened melancholy, Chris Dadge et al. trend in similarly wistful odes to forgotten summers although unassuming standout As Usual, replete with lyrics lamenting the "apathetic society" that has all but [...]
Of course it makes sense for a country with a climate as unrelentingly bleak as that of Sweden to pump out music ever entrenched in the key of melancholy. And by that same logic, it makes lucid sense for bands from Stockholm and the surrounding areas to favour the sunless stylisation of, say, dark-wave . As such – yup, you guessed it – may we introduce you to the grim disposition of Nordic four-piece Fun Control , and their forbidding début track, Trickle-down Effect. Vocally redolent of Dave Gahan, lyrics of pistol barrels pointed right between the eyes – [...]
It's eerie how frequently one thing can lead to another in terms of exposing any which artist opening up your very own outlook to a vortex of likeminded musicians, and that's precisely what occurred after we yesterday featured the quietly sublime Koloto . In its wake trailed a couple emails from acquaintances and/ or affiliates of Maria Sullivan, the pick of which would surely be the produce of inscrutable UK producer Ekoda Map . It's again a stylistic mode which is more closely aligned with so-called organica than it is electronica I suppose, in that manipulable gadgetry merely [...]
Last night a DJ saved my life. It was all within the context of a damn nebulous dream I ought add, in which Daphni restrainedly slew Primavera Sound . I guess it was a foggy illusion prompted by this belated onset of springtime, though it made me long to loll about Barça with a caña in one hand and slacker excellence in both ears posthaste. Philadelphian brother/ sister setup Great Thunder shan't be over in Cataluña next month – or at least I'm not aware of them being in an in any way professional capacity [...]
When you're scouring the SoundCloud of any which band, it can tend to take quite some time to distinguish its pièce de résistance up to that particular point in time. Often you find yourself compelled to afford your ears a moment's respite to contemplate as you return to the bookmarked URL a fourth or fifth, or perhaps even a sixth or seventh time. And as is the case with ethereal Orlando pairing TIDEUP , https://soundcloud.com/tideup is an address I've recurrently been hibernating within of late. Which really is quite something I suppose, given that Noelle Indovino and Ben Guzman [...]
Were I stranded in an endless desert with nothing but a strand-addled Discman for company while I were left with nothing to do but lose my marbles one by one with every minute seeming a year and my tongue increasingly becoming coarse as sandpaper, I'd want desert rock to play on in the backdrop 'til my inevitable demise. And on that merry note, I'd perhaps opt for something somewhere or other along the dustbowl-rolling lines of Minneapolis thrash. pop. gaze trio Gospel Gossip who, led by Sarah Nienaber, whip up a quiet maelstrom of Americana, melancholia and infinite [...]
Long Days? We've all had 'em. If you're working away this Good Friday you'll doubtless be only too aware of that fact though here to haul you through are Belgian duo I will, i swear . Comprising cotton candy-soft voiced Fien Deman and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Van Landegem, the pair find themselves at the forefront of a new tide of Belgian talent prompted by the international prominence afforded Jarri Van der Haegen's Disco Naïveté , I don't doubt. They've a couple tracks up on Unday Records' SoundCloud the second of which, Sleep, recalls the muted grandeur of Sigur [...]
Apparently operating outta Canada and programmed with a delectable predilection for oneiric downtempo ambient, Yoroku Saki is a dream of a proposition right from the very off. And 壊される – the Japanese for 'Broken' – is the sound of the precocious producer clicking into gear and polishing up his act to a meticulously refined extent: soft and numbing as heavily crystallised ice-cream, it's one awash with sumptuous clacks and subtle intricacies which, like obscure ingredients in a borderline inedible Blumenthal masterpiece, only become perceptible to the palette with repeated exposure. And that's precisely what this one merits right about [...]
So there are two reasons as to why a band may project an image of anonymity. The first is born of that enduringly irksome desire to maintain an air of mystique – whether out of a penchant for the enigmatical and purportedly inscrutable, or conversely out of a need to disguise an identity we're already acquainted with; one which may in turn put people off. For the former see iamwhoiamwhoami, whereas it's Silver Columns and Summer Camp for that there latter. Thankfully, all that jazz parped out of yore appears to have now died down somewhat, though the as yet faceless Outlaw Boogie [...]
Given all that all-pervasive fretting over the relevance of guitars within the context of contemporary music, and the purportedly diminishing role the instrument now plays in the composing thereof it's all too easy to neglect its inimitable qualities – qualities which London bros Angus and Oliver James nonchalantly employ to maximum impact. Their creative nom de plume forebodes The Death Of Pop , though it's a moniker which was surely first coined with tongues lodged so firmly in cheek so as to induce ulcers, for theirs is a breezy, and dare I say it poppy brilliance. Their latest, Kiss [...]
I've never been one for unorthodox typography nor ungainly tags, which makes my penchant for the instrumental hip hop to so heavily drizzle down from transatlantic SoundCloud profiles that bit inconsistent. Consequently, when I find myself faced with a moniker infested with an array of alt+ blah symbols, it can immediately be that bit repellent. It probably shouldn't be – what's in a nom de plume, after all? – though it more often than not transpires to be just so. Though rules are there for the rupturing, and an exception must be made in the peculiar case of ivel the [...]
It seems we speak of the subjectively perturbing trend of our most dexterous producers growing forever younger almost weekly these days, and our lament comes in early this time as sixteen-year-old Seamus Malliagh ghosts on in. Masquerading as Igloo Ghost , Malliagh trends in the itself immoderately trendy genre du jour that is instrumental hip hop, as début track Cool Sweater nimbly knits the vivid impressionism of FlyLo's Until The Quiet Comes into the blithe, downtempo vibes of Lapalux and the like. Feed your brain this one below, and it'll thank y'all later. [...]
As Robert Dale's Belgian Fog endeavour so transparently elucidated only yesterday, there are forever more artists emerging sounding that bit more fully-formed than some ever even aspired so to do. And woebegone Tyne and Wear songsmith Richard Smith is another such exemplar, in that his Wishing Well – lifted from début EP Autumn Is Here, And I Guess I'm Still In Love With You – is an utterly exemplary recording, irrespective of how far into his burgeoning career it just so happens to have come. Smith leaves us with no misgivings as [...]
I've recently been led to believe in Southampton FC full-back Luke Shaw being just about the South Coast's most precocious talent though as the dark ambiences of Cholombian here seep into the periphery of attention like a littoral mist, that may be all about to change. For Breathe Slow is a broody work of understated brilliance from the proficient youf – an intense hunk of instrumental hip hop, hemmed in with neat stabs of manipulated guitar and muffled beats which all render it pretty redolent of those more intricate bits on an Edan LP. An arresting one, [...]
Riding straight on through from one thing (the irrefutably excellent La Luz ) to a logical other, we wash up with Surf Club as we figuratively drift 800-odd miles down the West Coast 'til sanded and weary, we arrive at Stockton, California. An astonishingly youthful four-piece, their latest – Heaven – may be more lucidly associated with Reading's very own Robert Smith than it may with much of the neoprene-slathered plasticised culture of their native state, though who's to say Californians misspend every waking moment of every day frazzling in a never setting sun? This one was recorded [...]
"When you were mine, only mine/ When you were mine, I didn't have the time/ When you were mine, now I kinda wanna die/ And that's the truth straight, you know it all along." A familiar sentiment? For sure – you never know what you've got 'til it's gone though mercifully, here to alleviate the loss are La Luz – a very much palpable entity there for the grasping, and with that one of the most palatable surf acts perhaps ever to have come out of Seattle. Period. Four carefree ladies whose craft centres around [...]
More often than not, I find the whole anonymity thing to be pretty vexatious. Names are there to be put to faces and when you've neither name nor face, it can all become that little bit characterless. Mercifully however, the latest flickering house slow burn from enigmatic producer Artificial Fake , Make A Move, is bulging with personality. It is, to eulogise via idiom, the real deal . Of a springtime disposition, it reminds me to a not insubstantial degree of Toyboy & Robin's sublime In Need release, which more or less makes it a requisite acquisition. Again [...]
Increasingly, I've been finding that perhaps the world's most fertile musical soils at this particular point in time seem to be those coating the island of Australia and the wispy bits of the Netherlands. The former has a firm grip on shoegaze (for which see kigo of moments ago), while the latter appears to have adopted a more liberal approach. Typical. Mineral Beings are, to my ears, one of the region's brightest hopes whilst in Utrecht's Le Guess Who? they boast the finest metropolitan festival my feet have yet taken me to. [...]
Were you at the centre of a whirring Minneapolis snowstorm, and consequently couldn't burst forth from the front door what would you do? I'd panic, most probably. Panic, and once again hook myself up almost intravenously to the ol' internet 'til the whole thing had blown over. Thus I've an inordinate amount of respect for Psymun Christensen who, instead of scrupulously trawling GORILLA VS. BEAR and insistently; brainlessly bashing F5 on his various social media channels, set about piecing together an entire EP from scratch. Experimental, and largely instrumental hip hop at its most lucid and lustrous, Hair Dye is the [...]
They make for an obdurate couple, do The Ropes : they claim to hail from Antarctica's Halley Research Station, whilst the standout from their newly released 'pay what you like' Post-entertainment LP is entitled Hey Faggot. And though the beyond unorthodox boy/ girl duo haven't baptised it thus in corroboration of a reticent homophobia or anything, it makes for an irrefutably traumatised listen – a little like the Gainsbourg weird-out Charlotte For Ever had Serge a predilection for sordidly incestuous ulterior motives and such. Instead, the overriding message of Hey Faggot is that [...]
Dots & Dashes
Download: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Can’t Hold Us (Major Lazer Remix)
Virginia Wing: Red Sails
Thee Oh Sees/ Sauna Youth
Washed Out Announce New Album ‘Paracosm’
