Remember Röyksopp? No? Not even the one with Fever Ray? Well no matter, for although the Norwegian sentimentalists have slipped forever deeper into eternal irrelevance since the trailblazing release of their seminal (yes, that's seminal ) début Melody A.M. , their legacy lives on. For rarely does electronica resonate with such emotive potency, and it's in that same rich vein of feeling that Brooklyn duo Beacon appear to have bathed their mutedly, if only periodically sublime début full-length, The Ways We Separate . It's an album comprising incisive avant-garde cuts (Overseer) and sultry [...]
The detrimental flipside to the forging of a USP distinctive as that accredited to Brooklyn label Captured Tracks is that you can foreseeably begin to restrict your horizons. That's to say that in honing in on indie-pop vibe indebted to grunge, garage and the oneiric in equal measure, it could then become kinda difficult to escape the confines of that particular, if particularly variegated musical kaleidoscope. Though doing away with convention as is so often the wont of Mike Sniper et al., and thus bringing some monochromic variety to the roster are this Portland, Oregon pairing comprising synth wunderkind [...]
The concept of the covers record is, in itself, an inherently disorienting experience as once cherished songs are heaved, hoed and traditionally hauled out of the cozy comfort zone that familiarity so often incurs within the musical world. Though to hear Buzz Osborne's sludge mongers the Melvins shred their cruddy way through a couple minutes of Black Betty which sound as though the sonic equivalent to the exhumed entrails of Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter himself dusted down and swung overhead to exude a blackened, gritty blend of fetid blood and granular dirt, is positively dizzying as the Afro-American [...]
Given the explicitly contentious artwork adorning Iggy and the Stooges' long overdue latest – their fifth, their first since that somewhat questionable 2007 LP The Weirdness and therefore so too since the untimely demise of long-standing guitarist Ron Asheton – its release couldn't have come at a more inopportune moment mere weeks after the Boston Marathon bombings to have since traumatised Pop's native United States. It depicts the proto-punk maven at the middle of a blood-red crosshair, plastic explosives enwrapped around his skeletal torso and as he sneers on opener Burn: "Guess [...]
Australian four-piece Glass Towers bring to mind something very specific across their new single, 'Jumanji'. Like the title would suggest, the tumbling beats and sun-scorched guitar lines evoke simpler, innocent times, when there was nothing more pressing than choosing which hill to giddily roll down. Having received support by the taste-making Triple J back home, the group come to these shores soon to play both The Great Escape and some London dates in the near future, with an EP set for release over here too. Until then though, find a hill and get rolling. This is [...]
London four-piece Savages release their hugely anticipated debut album on 6th May and have posted the entire thing online for your listening pleasure a week early. We've already heard the devastating 'She Will' and the recently aired 'No Face' and the album will also feature early singles 'Husbands', 'I Am Here', and 'City’s Full'. It was produced Rodaidh McDonald. Silence Yourself in their own words: “SAVAGES is not trying to give you something you didn’t have already, it is calling within yourself something you buried ages ago, it is an attempt to [...]
I'm about as sneery when it comes to Topshop as your average daydream disbeliever made to trudge the length and indeed breadth of the eternally tedious, smog-addled aorta of central London that is Oxford Street on any given Sunday. I was mercifully spared this weekend just gone, though I spent it instead getting faintly acquainted with an EP entitled Topshop from Brightonian trio Teardrop Factory . It's their début release on black wax, yet beyond the scratched veneer of a stereotypical lo-fi aesthetic resides a real knack for the fabricating of polychromic, '90s-inspired pop ditties which belies their newly [...]
Wherever does one go from a glistering synth-pop opus reconceptualising the life of John DeLorean? Well, to an ever blithe re-envisaging of the life of Italian lefty Giangiacomo Feltrinelli – the inspiratory founder of one of the Mediterranean's most widely lionised 20th century publishing houses, of course. And Praxis Makes Perfect – the wondrously outré sophomore recording from the pair comprising Gruff Rhys and Bryan Hollon known only as Neon Neon – is, appositely I suppose, the sound of the duo becoming that bit better acquainted with one another. And although the power balladry [...]
"We can't understand German, so we got yelled at by some bus driver telling us we were in the wrong place. He was nice enough to turn around, otherwise it would've been kinda awkward having to lug our equipment around. 'OK, yeah! Danke! Danke Schoen! Bye-bye!' Pfft." That's the jovial reasoning behind this afternoon's scheduled Plausch with Alex Zhang Hungtai of Dirty Beaches taking place that bit belatedly. He's currently, well, not exactly living in Berlin but he's been there since December. "I don't know how long we're gonna be here, but I guess [...]
“Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck leaves all his stereotypical luminary comparisons behind with his most exploratory album to date...” Phosphorescent | Muchacho After physically exhausting himself on his ironically named 2010 album Here’s To Taking It Easy 's tour, Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck toyed with the idea of this being his last Phosphorescent album. However, after ‘checking out of life’ for a while in the solitary Mexico desert, Houck began to shape the tender, heartfelt sounds of Muchacho . Muchacho opens with a synth fluttering instrumental. ‘Sun, arise!’ soaks the listener with a mystical yet [...]
"If we disregard the dresses, the fake blood, and the irritating affectations, there are still a great talent with the capability and potential to create momentously essential music..." Deerhunter | Monomania According to Bradford Cox, self-proclaimed monomaniacal front-man of Deerhunter (I use ‘man’ in the gentlest possible terms, as he regularly adopts an interesting dress combination during his live reincarnations), the band’s latest installment in their schizophrenic oeuvre, Monomania, is “avant garde (?) but only in context not form (original intent of avant garde (1912-59) / before logic: FOG MACHINE / LEATHER / NEON”. I’ll let [...]
With their previous single, 'Chocolate', eating up the radio and scoring the band their first UK top 20, we were delighted to help premiere their new single, 'The City ', a few weeks ago. In support of it, the group stopped by Phil Taggart's BBC Radio 1 show this week for a live session, which included this cover of Chris Malinchak's sun-drenched 'So Good To Me'. The new arrangement, which sees singer Matt Healy make a rare appeearance on piano, strips back and slows down the original, transforming it into an ice-cold monochrome masterpiece. [...]
It was only a month ago that Daughter visited Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show and unveiled their beautiful, haunting mash up of Bon Iver's 'Perth' and Hot Chip's 'Ready For The Floor'. Well this week they returned to Radio 1 for another live session, and this time tackled Daft Punk's phenomenally hooky 'Get Lucky', which premiered last week and features Nile Rogers and Pharrell Williams. Again, they transform the original into a slow-burning torch song, complete with airy, echo-drenched guitars wafting through the background and Elena Tonra's distinctive vocal sitting front and centre. [...]
"It is some of the album’s less obvious moments however that shine brightest, and offer a tantalising glimpse of what Dog Is Dead could well blossom into..." Dog Is Dead | KOKO 25.04.13 “Every time we come to London we play to twice as many people as last time” , lead singer Robert Milton tells a jubilant KOKO. For a group of guitar-wielding, straight-down-the-line indie lads – in times that we’re told are increasingly difficult for guitar-wielding, straight-down-the-line indie lads – this is encouraging news. But this is no overnight success story. The Nottingham [...]
A fortnight ago The Boxer Rebellion posted the first snippet of their new album, Promises , in the form of the achingly wonderful, slow-burning 'Diamonds' - one of our favourite tracks of the year so far. Well, now we have more. Featuring shimmering guitars and Nathan Nicholson's soaring falsetto this is arena-sized stuff without the cliche. 'Keep Moving' is a trip and - much like 'Diamonds' before it - will leave you in something of a state by the time it's built up to its climax in the closing 90 seconds. So that's [...]
Last month Savages unveiled, 'She Will ', the lead single from their upcoming debut album Silence Yourself and a dark, sulking gem of a song. This morning Mary Anne Hobbs played the world's first outing of it's follow up, 'No Face', on her BBC 6 Music show. It's faster, more urgent and more visceral than it's predecessor, adopting a thrilling punky edge, with some more mesmerising, scattergun vocals courtesy of Jehnny Beth. One thing's for sure, this Savages record is shaping up to be one of the grandest of 2013.
It's just a few weeks now until Noah and the Whale unveil album number four, Heart of Nowhere . We've already heart the pulsating, driving 'There Will Come A Time', which seemed to follow on from 20112s Last Night On Earth 's Tom Petty-esque top-down aesthetic. Recorded live to tape towards the end of last year, Fink has said that this came with compromises: "When you record live you exchange a sort of technical perfection for more emotion and energy," says lead singer Charlie Fink. "Allowing the flaws and the [...]
Who can tell how Joe Goddard's gonna feel about this one, though it seems strangely apt that as Italo-London songstress Valentina finally comes into her own and approaches the so-called big time , she should unveil her very own, and relatively speaking very minimal take on that divine slive of pop effervescence that first awakened the world to her husky tones. Below sleeps Gabriel in all his seraphic glory, Goddard's pulverising drops, well, dropped in favour of shushed electronic susurrations and swelling harmonies. It makes for a discombobulating first few listens without the clumpy background undulations we've [...]
To even to so much as suggest Animal Collective's Centipede Hz LP of yesteryear was patchy would be at best a rich compliment, for truth be known it was by and large rather more miss than hit . We suggested then that it was one which needed more time to develop and grow on you tumorously, for it initially seemed ridden with larval earworms (earcentipedes, perhaps) in need of further fertilisation. Though as Brian DeGraw of albeit all too modest Gang Gang Dance fame tonks in with a viciously compelling [...]
David Bowie is indubitably one of the most influential artists of recent times. Across a career spanning some fifty years, he has repeatedly changed the way we look at the world; adjusted the face of fashion; altered the future of music forever. And so when on his 66th birthday Bowie released his first new song in ten years, it made for an unquestionably special moment. Bowie was back, and just as his latest LP The Next Day made for one of the most anticipated albums of this year thus far, the V&A's David Bowie is [...]
Dots & Dashes
When The Gramophone Rings
Kanye West: Capa do novo álbum / Performance de “New Slaves” e “Black Skinhead” no SNL
Noteworthy (Stream): Telekinesis – Ghosts and Creatures
Kanye West Announces Album Title & Release Date
