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czwartek, 10 czerwca 2010
The Flashbulb - Arboreal [2010]
Tracklist:
1. Undiscovered Colors
2. Dragging Afloat
3. The Trees In Russia
4. We, The Dispelled
5. Meadow Crush
6. A Raw Understanding
7. Dread, Etched In Snow
8. A Million Dotted Lines
9. Once Weekly
10. Springtime In Distance
11. Dreaming Renewal
12. The Great Pumpkin Tapes
13. Lines Between Us
14. Burning The Black And White
15. Telescopic Memorial
16. Skeletons
17. Tomorrow Untrodden
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Ratatat - LP4 [2010]
Maybe this was inevitable. Nobody has really been denying that Ratatat's trade is in immediate gratification. And when that's the case, it's a difficult feat not to burn out pretty quickly. 2008's LP3, though weak, served at least to reassure Ratatat's audience that the band doesn't want to stagnate; you can't rewrite "17 Years" forever, after all, and it's admirable that they chose not to.
But what they managed to do with their prior releases was inspire a kind of faith that they could effortlessly wow us. 2006's Classics was such an immaculate maturation of their sound that there wasn't any room left to keep pushing themselves in the same direction. They had to move laterally. They did a fair job with LP3, but it was clear that they were a little uncomfortable in their new skin. Optimistically, it had the appearance of growing pains, rather than the beginning of their descent.
LP4, however, is troubling evidence that that optimism may have been in vain. The best-case scenario would be for it to expand on the experiments of LP3, putting that album into perspective as the obvious stepping stone to this new Ratatat, one perhaps with less vigor but more nuance. Instead what we get is a largely muddled, pale shadow of Ratatat. The hooks lay flaccid, resembling scale exercises rather than the fierce, gripping barbs of previous work. The instrumental vocabulary is indeed broader, but you could be forgiven for not even noticing — it's cheap tinsel on the same formula (a word I never thought I'd use in describing this band). The whole thing just sounds like habit.
Note, for instance, how after four minutes of giving us almost nothing to sink our teeth into, "Bob Gandhi" unceremoniously makes a quick, defeated exit. Its one crutch is the obligatory inclusion of their signature guitar harmonies, which succeeds only in signaling, "Here is the song's hook." It's actually a little convincing at first, but the content is just uninspired floundering. "Neckbrace" begins promisingly with some compelling percussive elements, but its second half devolves into the aimless pushing of buttons. "Mandy" presents some similarly arbitrary buzzing and gurgling, while "Grape Juice City" and "Alps" are all but conceptually bankrupt. "We Can't Be Stopped" and "Mahalo" flirt with some genuinely emotive atmospheres, and on an entirely different Ratatat record, they would act as contemplative respites from the party surrounding them; but here, they're lifeless husks.
In fact, much of the record possesses a kind of flat tedium. These aren't compositions, strictly speaking, like the ones we've known Ratatat to be capable of. It's as though these songs had 30 tracks recorded for their chord patterns, and each is faded in or out without concern for an overall structure other than to layer things more densely as time passes to create the illusion of some kind of progression.
What's frustrating is that beneath the surface of LP4 there appears to be the basis for a great record. But its execution is too rote, too much the result of being so entrenched in the band's Ratatat-ness that the material is suffocated. If we wish to remain optimistic, we can take solace in the fact that these tracks were conceived during the same sessions as LP3, that maybe they are only the final, sputtering wheezes of Ratatat Part I. Or maybe we'll get a couple more variations on "17 Years" in 2012.
tinymixtapes.com
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Sleepy Sun - Fever [2010]
Opening six-minute song Marina weaves distorted guitar lines through dreamy, cavernous verses, impassioned vocal harmonies and primal drum breakdowns. At times Sleepy Sun recalls the melodic, searing power of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Gish album as they move from the more aggressive and fuzzy-edged soundscapes of Embrace, which probably had more in common with Monster Magnet.
On songs such as the percussionless drone of Acid Love and the sleepy Desert God, the whiff of patchouli, or something stronger, is never too far away. The nine-minute closer, Sandstorm Woman, travels a predictable path from a quiet intro to a clamorous wig-out finale, but otherwise Fever shows an expanded palette from Embrace. A fair bet they’d be a mind-blowing live band.
smh.com.au
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Here We Go Magic - Pigeons [2010]
In a year when Brooklyn bands dominated the music discussion, Here We Go Magic's self-titled debut still managed to stand out enough to turn a few heads in 2009. Frontman Luke Temple, taking the lead of the more established Brooklyn bands, had headlining spots at CMJ and opened for Grizzly Bear and the Walkmen, among others. Temple put together a full backing band in the process. Pigeons, Here We Go Magic's second album and first on Secrety Canadian, was recorded on a winter retreat to upsate New York. The recording session was sandwiched in between two extensive North American tours.
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Suckers - Wild Smile [2010]
Before we get to the new Suckers album, let’s run down a quick list of overused adjectives that get thrown around a lot in reviews. You know, words like psychedelic, dreamy, blissed-out, druggy, expansive, lush, and so on. You get the idea. These terms get used, sometimes, because they’re useful keywords that give a quick insight into what you might expect from an artist. But they’re also sometimes used—and I’ve done this, admittedly—in place of really figuring out what’s going on with a band’s sound. They’re used because what the band does is slippery, and rather than spending 500 words tracing a sound back to its disparate roots, we go with a quick phrase. It may be economical, but it’s also, let’s admit it, a bit lazy.
This all comes up because, well, Suckers are damned slippery. Wild Smile, their first full-length record, denies easy summary or genre tags. It’s hard to pin any of those adjectives on these guys. And yet they are the words that came to mind as I listened to the record over and over again. Why? Because Wild Smile is awfully good, but it’s really hard to explain what makes it that way.
There are a few things that stick out about Suckers, though, on this record. The first is that these guys are songwriters. It sounds simple, sure, but what these guys achieve on Wild Smile is no small feat. They craft eleven distinct and catchy songs. Each track has its own feel, and yet as a whole they come together nicely into a cohesive, arresting musical world.
And while that world has walls around it, they are far off in the distance. The rhythm section on Wild Smile is downright stunning, both grounding these lofty songs and giving them the space to roam. The drums can clang away on “Roman Candles”, loosening up the track, or tighten up on songs like “Black Sheep” to reign in the wandering keys. The bass rumbles subtly on “You Can Keep Me Running Around” or snaps off notes on “Martha” to fill the space between those thundering drums and the high plink of the guitars. The combination of the barreling rhythm section, the spiraling high-on-the-neck guitar riffs, and the layers of vocal melodies—with all the echo and space around them—could be mistaken for something hazy and impressionistic.
If Wild Smile were just that, they’d have a decent record on their hands. But if you live with this record awhile, you’ll find that is a clear-eyed and carefully constructed set of songs. They don’t rest on blurry sound, like so many lesser bands would. Is there reverb and gauzy texture to all of this? Of course. But the sharp riffs of “Before Your Birthday Ends” and the arresting melodies of “A Mind I Knew” cut through the atmosphere rather than hiding behind it.
Above all that, though, the band has a secret weapon: frontman Quinn Walker. What ultimately separates Suckers from a lot of other new bands is their undeniable energy. Instead of resting lazily on atmosphere, and meshing his voice in with all these tangling sounds, Walker brings a circus hawker’s wild-eyed zeal to these tracks, not to mention something close to vocal schizophrenia. He goes from lilting croon to quick-fire yelp on “King of Snakes”, baits us with an unassuming mumble on “Save Your Love For Me” before unleashing an unworldly falsetto, and holds onto a smoother version of that falsetto for the soul-jam of “Before Your Birthday Ends”. It also helps that, along with his crazed energy, Walker lacks even a hint of self-seriousness. In fact, he may test you with that ultimately campy vocal delivery on “Before Your Birthday Ends”, or with the whistling into to “Roman Candles”, which may remind you of the closing scene of Full Metal Jacket both in how silly and unsettling it is.
But therein lies the charm of Suckers. They are a tight-as-hell band with an original and arresting sound, but they’d rather stomp their feet than stare at their navels. I don’t know what to call the sound they find on Wild Smile, and I don’t always know what to make of its goofier moments. That, though, is exactly what makes it such a compelling record. Whatever you call it, whatever title you try and stick this unruly, wonderful album under doesn’t matter. Because the name you give it has nothing to do with how, come album closer “Loose Change”, you’ll be singing and clapping along with the rest of your band. And that thing on your face while you do it? I believe they titled the album after that.
popmatters.com
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Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today [2010]
Before Today is supposed to be Ariel Pink's breakthrough album. Primarily that's because it was made in a real studio, paid for by a real label with real money – 'til now, all of his music has emerged from his bedroom, where'd he kneel to record albums like The Doldrums and House Arrest, much of the time playing ‘the drums’ with his mouth. These albums sounded like retreat into an own world – they were covered in a thick film of lo-fi noise hum and melodies were evasive, often flitting and strafing through that fuzz as if an infant was mad with control of a car's AM radio dial. Fortunately, they were also insanely good records – the extent of Pink's pop nous has been clear for a while now, and much of Before Today does sound like an unleashing of that, particularly lead single Round and Round with its 10cc-recalling synths and bassline stolen from Sade's Hang On To Your Love. The album's highpoint arrives in its first bridge, as Ariel ‘answers the phone’ amid guitar waft that sounds like billowing net curtains on a hot summer's day.
Other highlights arrive in the 70s Bowie funk snark of opener Hot Body Rub, Bright Lit Blue Skies' quietly euphoric pop radio charge, L'estat's synth whirl and Reminiscences' pleasant, aquatic drift. In fact, every track on this superb album is a winner – and, draped in the quiet glamour, fun and stateliness of bygone radio pop-rock, evidence that Ariel has emerged from his bedroom to exact his revenge on Hollywood's Hills.
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Wild Nothing - Gemini [2010]
Gemini finds Tatum constructing a striking, solitary monument to just about anyone who moped, sulked, or bedsat their way through the 1980s. His love of dreamy, fuzzy, handcrafted guitar-pop isn't far removed from the Radio Dept. or the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, but he displays a more comprehensive and widespread commitment to classic indie pop sounds. Revivalism notwithstanding, his craftsmanship is undeniable and the details are spot-on: Check the reflective bell tone in "Live in Dreams", the Cocteau Twins-like, artificial synth tom in "Drifter", and the Johnny Marr homage in the twinkly guitar fade-in that begins "Our Composition Book".
While Tatum plays hopscotch with his collection of 4AD, Factory, and Slumberland records, Gemini has plenty more to offer than sonic verisimilitude. On album opener "Live in Dreams," he sings, "Our lips won't last forever and that's exactly why/ I'd rather live in dreams and I'd rather die," and the lyric plays out like Gemini in miniature: While Tatum's words can edge on maudlin, his delivery is more romantic than dreary, and there's a sly, understated, and subtly addictive melody that gorgeously frames his sentiments. And melodies like that one, which the album features in spades, are ultimately what make Gemini more than just another indie pop record, and often more than the sum of its parts. Of course, that's not to say that each of them connects instantly. Though a handful of immediate standouts reward first listens, the record's debt-to-influence ratio may initially seem to overshadow the strength of the music. However, repeat spins reveal Tatum's strikingly innate sense of songcraft, as these tracks gradually earworm their way into daily life.
Similar to Bradford Cox's early work as Atlas Sound or the more similarly indebted Nick Harte of Shocking Pinks, Wild Nothing doesn't feel like a facile genre exercise so much as honest personal expression borne of intense musical fanhood. And in a strange way, it becomes something of a deceptively joyous affair, a reminder of why so many songwriters retreat to bedrooms or garages to lose themselves in the music-making process. Gemini is grand when it sulks, and even better when it's in motion-- check the falsetto hooks of "Confirmation" and "Summer Holidays", or the clattering, kinetic "Chinatown". Tatum carves a tunnel from Ibiza's beaches to Manchester's rain-soaked fairgrounds, and in the process, captures a lot of what is exciting about underground music's current classic indie-pop fixation.
pitchfork.com
Robyn - Body Talk Pt. 1 [2010]
"I'm always going to feel like this person on the outside looking in," Robyn recently told Popjustice. The Swedish singer and songwriter has no fear of pop: A platinum seller in her own country, Robyn cracked the Billboard top 10 in the late 1990s working with famed teen-pop producer Max Martin. As the daughter of a couple who ran an independent theater company, however, Robin Miriam Carlsson is also a woman who enjoys doing things her own way.
Robyn, first released in Scandinavia five years ago on the newly liberated singer's own Konichiwa label, ultimately led to a UK #1 hit, a tour with Madonna, and Snoop Dogg remix spots. Major labels turned out to be a necessary evil, but the deal's on Robyn's terms now. "It's pop music, you know?" she told us earlier this year. "It's entertainment and at the same time it has to mean something to me. I like dealing with that balance."
With Body Talk Pt. 1, the first of a potential three new albums tentatively scheduled for 2010, Robyn doesn't just walk the line between what she has called the "commercial" and "tastemaker" realms. She obliterates it. Immaculately produced, fantastically sung, and loaded with memorable choruses, this eight-song effort has plenty to please everyone from post-dubstep crate diggers to teen tweeters-- often at the same time. Like most of Robyn's best tracks, though, from mid-90s teen-pop hit "Show Me Love" to "With Every Heartbeat" a decade later, Body Talk Pt. 1 is capable of not only appealing to many different people, but also touching them emotionally.
"Play me some kind of new sound/ Something true and sincere," Robyn begs on "None of Dem", a dark, tense, early-morning type of dance track featuring Norwegian electropop duo Röyksopp. She's not being hypocritical. Opener "Don't Fucking Tell Me What to Do", a talky electro-house tirade against electro-age anxieties, really isn't like anything else in the singer's discography. "Dancehall Queen", her so-wrong-it's-right collaboration with tastemaking Philadelphia DJ/producer Diplo, may have purists grumbling at its 1980s dancehall synths, subwoofer wobble, and "Sleng Teng" shoutout-- the title's sideways allusion to ABBA appears to have gone generally overlooked-- but "I came to dance, not to socialize." It's here, dancing, with a chorus that Santigold and Gwen Stefani might kill for, that Robyn is free from all the worries that are "killing" her at the album's start.
Robyn reintroduced Robyn as a Missy Elliott-loving badass. Body Talk Pt. 1 texts that persona into the 2010s. Most similar to songs like "Konichiwa Bitches", "Cobrastyle", and "Curriculum Vitae" is first preview "Fembot", a Klas Åhlund co-write that flips the script on Robyn's track for Röyksopp's 2009 Junior. On "The Girl and the Robot", Robyn was the neglected lover "asleep again in front of MTV." Here, to wonderful effect, she's a "scientifically advanced hot mama."
But Robyn seems most comfortable watching from afar as somebody else goes home with her prize. Dancing, the narrator's escape on "Dancehall Queen", becomes a prison of her own making on the album's emotional peak, "Dancing on My Own"-- a clear descendant of Robyn's girl-loses-boy, boy-ties-Ms.-Whatshername's-laces classic, "Be Mine!". With unadorned piano and strings, "Hang With Me (Acoustic Version)" is closer to "Be Mine! (Ballad Version)" and hits similar emotional notes: You say you're just friends, well that's OK, but don't you dare "fall recklessly, headlessly in love with" her. If she's sitting on a killer dancefloor version of this one, good luck.
In an album full of songs that manage to be both specific and universal, "Cry When You Get Older" might prove to be the most enduring: a prom song, a graduation song, an end-of-summer-camp-PowerPoint song. Dudes like Max Martin and Peter Bjorn & John meet at parties and brag about what great melodies they've written, Robyn told us a couple of years ago; this is one worth bragging about. The lyrics are conversational, the synths respond, and there's a Prince reference to go with a Smashing Pumpkins' "1979"-like perspective on teenage ennui. Everybody in the back, quote it: "I lost all my faith in science/ So I put my faith in me."
Body Talk Pt. 1 ends painfully soon, but at least it ends with a pair of tracks focusing on Robyn's soulful voice. In addition to "Hang With Me", there's "Jag Vet En Dejilg Rosa", a Swedish traditional song the singer performed over Björn Yttling's piano accompaniment in a 2007 tsunami memorial. Here she's backed by bells, and her touch is lighter. Robyn's vocals aren't only about singing; they're also about untranscribeable details like the little flutter when she sort of smiles at herself on this slow song, or her goofy ad libs between lyrics on faster songs. Above all, Robyn puts herself on the line-- loses her cool for the sake of emotional connection-- like few other contemporary vocalists.
In 2000, a guy I know e-mailed Robyn about singing technique. In her reply, she gave detailed advice about maintaining his jaw muscles, hips, back, tongue, and vocal chords. "But the most important thing," she wrote, "is to be happy, and I don't mean that you always should be in a good mood. Because all the emotional stress that you feel is reflected in your body and can easily affect your voice-- which is a good thing if you take care of it. Because it is a tool that will help you get to know yourself and remind you when it's time for you to look inside for answers." Head and hips are both important, but the heart is still the strongest muscle. Bring it, Body Talk Pt. 2.
pitchfork.com
listen
Robyn, first released in Scandinavia five years ago on the newly liberated singer's own Konichiwa label, ultimately led to a UK #1 hit, a tour with Madonna, and Snoop Dogg remix spots. Major labels turned out to be a necessary evil, but the deal's on Robyn's terms now. "It's pop music, you know?" she told us earlier this year. "It's entertainment and at the same time it has to mean something to me. I like dealing with that balance."
With Body Talk Pt. 1, the first of a potential three new albums tentatively scheduled for 2010, Robyn doesn't just walk the line between what she has called the "commercial" and "tastemaker" realms. She obliterates it. Immaculately produced, fantastically sung, and loaded with memorable choruses, this eight-song effort has plenty to please everyone from post-dubstep crate diggers to teen tweeters-- often at the same time. Like most of Robyn's best tracks, though, from mid-90s teen-pop hit "Show Me Love" to "With Every Heartbeat" a decade later, Body Talk Pt. 1 is capable of not only appealing to many different people, but also touching them emotionally.
"Play me some kind of new sound/ Something true and sincere," Robyn begs on "None of Dem", a dark, tense, early-morning type of dance track featuring Norwegian electropop duo Röyksopp. She's not being hypocritical. Opener "Don't Fucking Tell Me What to Do", a talky electro-house tirade against electro-age anxieties, really isn't like anything else in the singer's discography. "Dancehall Queen", her so-wrong-it's-right collaboration with tastemaking Philadelphia DJ/producer Diplo, may have purists grumbling at its 1980s dancehall synths, subwoofer wobble, and "Sleng Teng" shoutout-- the title's sideways allusion to ABBA appears to have gone generally overlooked-- but "I came to dance, not to socialize." It's here, dancing, with a chorus that Santigold and Gwen Stefani might kill for, that Robyn is free from all the worries that are "killing" her at the album's start.
Robyn reintroduced Robyn as a Missy Elliott-loving badass. Body Talk Pt. 1 texts that persona into the 2010s. Most similar to songs like "Konichiwa Bitches", "Cobrastyle", and "Curriculum Vitae" is first preview "Fembot", a Klas Åhlund co-write that flips the script on Robyn's track for Röyksopp's 2009 Junior. On "The Girl and the Robot", Robyn was the neglected lover "asleep again in front of MTV." Here, to wonderful effect, she's a "scientifically advanced hot mama."
But Robyn seems most comfortable watching from afar as somebody else goes home with her prize. Dancing, the narrator's escape on "Dancehall Queen", becomes a prison of her own making on the album's emotional peak, "Dancing on My Own"-- a clear descendant of Robyn's girl-loses-boy, boy-ties-Ms.-Whatshername's-laces classic, "Be Mine!". With unadorned piano and strings, "Hang With Me (Acoustic Version)" is closer to "Be Mine! (Ballad Version)" and hits similar emotional notes: You say you're just friends, well that's OK, but don't you dare "fall recklessly, headlessly in love with" her. If she's sitting on a killer dancefloor version of this one, good luck.
In an album full of songs that manage to be both specific and universal, "Cry When You Get Older" might prove to be the most enduring: a prom song, a graduation song, an end-of-summer-camp-PowerPoint song. Dudes like Max Martin and Peter Bjorn & John meet at parties and brag about what great melodies they've written, Robyn told us a couple of years ago; this is one worth bragging about. The lyrics are conversational, the synths respond, and there's a Prince reference to go with a Smashing Pumpkins' "1979"-like perspective on teenage ennui. Everybody in the back, quote it: "I lost all my faith in science/ So I put my faith in me."
Body Talk Pt. 1 ends painfully soon, but at least it ends with a pair of tracks focusing on Robyn's soulful voice. In addition to "Hang With Me", there's "Jag Vet En Dejilg Rosa", a Swedish traditional song the singer performed over Björn Yttling's piano accompaniment in a 2007 tsunami memorial. Here she's backed by bells, and her touch is lighter. Robyn's vocals aren't only about singing; they're also about untranscribeable details like the little flutter when she sort of smiles at herself on this slow song, or her goofy ad libs between lyrics on faster songs. Above all, Robyn puts herself on the line-- loses her cool for the sake of emotional connection-- like few other contemporary vocalists.
In 2000, a guy I know e-mailed Robyn about singing technique. In her reply, she gave detailed advice about maintaining his jaw muscles, hips, back, tongue, and vocal chords. "But the most important thing," she wrote, "is to be happy, and I don't mean that you always should be in a good mood. Because all the emotional stress that you feel is reflected in your body and can easily affect your voice-- which is a good thing if you take care of it. Because it is a tool that will help you get to know yourself and remind you when it's time for you to look inside for answers." Head and hips are both important, but the heart is still the strongest muscle. Bring it, Body Talk Pt. 2.
pitchfork.com
listen
Tame Impala - Innerspeaker [2010]
From the Vines to Wolfmother to Jet, recent Aussie rock exports have been painfully indebted to arena rock-- quick to recycle a sound but rarely succeeding in revitalizing it. Perth three-piece Tame Impala play with some of the ingredients of arena rock as well but do so in aid of more leftfield, organic sounds and interesting excursions. The result is a cleanly executed and frequently dazzling debut: Innerspeaker is a psychedelia-heavy outing that toys with paisley pop, stoner vibes, and an expansive array of swirling guitars.
On first listen, Innerspeaker provides a lot of dots to connect: There are patches of late-60s American psychedelia, buzzy Motor City riffage, and decades of British pop, ranging from the pastoral pop of the Kinks to the vivid expansiveness of the Verve to the narcotic warmth of the Stone Roses. Frontman Kevin Parker shares an eerie vocal similarity with John Lennon, both in tone and in the way he allows his voice to soar with each melodic turn or rhythmic surge. Though most of the album is a little restrained lyrically, Parker's rapturous phrasing conveys the meaning. Mixed by Flaming Lips collaborator Dave Fridmann, each component is here is set on an even plane, allowing bass lines and delay-swept guitar bursts to melt into one another, cultivating a uniform feel that's vintage, far-out, and irrepressibly cool.
By all accounts, fixing their gaze so intently on established influences should play as either disingenuous or forced. It's difficult to be so plugged-in to a vintage feel without the music seeming time-capsuled, but the band's vibrance help these songs sound very much alive. Tame Impala aren't taking a purely revisionist approach-- you aren't left with a feeling that their intention was recreate some lost Love demo or an Jimi Hendrix Experience deep cut. If anything, their record points to some of the same roads traveled recently by bands like Animal Collective or Liars, but dials back the eccentricities and difficulty level, leaning on the guitar rather than electronics, and focusing their efforts through more traditional pysch-rock prisms. They aren't as adventurous as their more offbeat peers, but because of their lazer-guided hooks and tangible pleasures, they might wind up reaching more people.
This is very much an album's album-- it sounds best as a piece, where you can get lost in its heady expanse. With the kaleidoscopic stereo-panning on "Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?" or the maddening stomp on "Bold Arrow of Time", Innerspeaker demonstrates a subtle yet encompassing sense of control, never obstructing the grander motifs while still offering a variety of odd details that guide you back to the album's hooks. There aren't any standout singles on Innerspeaker in the sense that it's unlikely that people are going to be asking you to throw on certain tracks by name (though if in a pinch, "Expectation" and "Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?" should suffice nicely). But when an album is able to tinker with and update familiar textures and moods without blurring the lines too much or just plain overdoing it, you can believe that psych fans will be asking for it to be thrown on regardless. If you're smart, you'll oblige them.
listen
On first listen, Innerspeaker provides a lot of dots to connect: There are patches of late-60s American psychedelia, buzzy Motor City riffage, and decades of British pop, ranging from the pastoral pop of the Kinks to the vivid expansiveness of the Verve to the narcotic warmth of the Stone Roses. Frontman Kevin Parker shares an eerie vocal similarity with John Lennon, both in tone and in the way he allows his voice to soar with each melodic turn or rhythmic surge. Though most of the album is a little restrained lyrically, Parker's rapturous phrasing conveys the meaning. Mixed by Flaming Lips collaborator Dave Fridmann, each component is here is set on an even plane, allowing bass lines and delay-swept guitar bursts to melt into one another, cultivating a uniform feel that's vintage, far-out, and irrepressibly cool.
By all accounts, fixing their gaze so intently on established influences should play as either disingenuous or forced. It's difficult to be so plugged-in to a vintage feel without the music seeming time-capsuled, but the band's vibrance help these songs sound very much alive. Tame Impala aren't taking a purely revisionist approach-- you aren't left with a feeling that their intention was recreate some lost Love demo or an Jimi Hendrix Experience deep cut. If anything, their record points to some of the same roads traveled recently by bands like Animal Collective or Liars, but dials back the eccentricities and difficulty level, leaning on the guitar rather than electronics, and focusing their efforts through more traditional pysch-rock prisms. They aren't as adventurous as their more offbeat peers, but because of their lazer-guided hooks and tangible pleasures, they might wind up reaching more people.
This is very much an album's album-- it sounds best as a piece, where you can get lost in its heady expanse. With the kaleidoscopic stereo-panning on "Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?" or the maddening stomp on "Bold Arrow of Time", Innerspeaker demonstrates a subtle yet encompassing sense of control, never obstructing the grander motifs while still offering a variety of odd details that guide you back to the album's hooks. There aren't any standout singles on Innerspeaker in the sense that it's unlikely that people are going to be asking you to throw on certain tracks by name (though if in a pinch, "Expectation" and "Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?" should suffice nicely). But when an album is able to tinker with and update familiar textures and moods without blurring the lines too much or just plain overdoing it, you can believe that psych fans will be asking for it to be thrown on regardless. If you're smart, you'll oblige them.
listen
James Blake - CMYK [2010]
I must admit, when I hear everyone ranting and raving about an artist, my first instinct, instead of listening, is to do the opposite: tune it out and see whether it comes to me. Case in point is James Blake. With so many people, publications and forums hyping this young man up, I wondered whether the hype could be justified.
When I found out he was the guy behind the Harmonimixes, synth-driven bootlegs of Pharrell and Snoop’s ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’, Destiny’s Child’s ‘Bills Bills Bills’ and Outkast’s classic ‘Ms Jackson’ among others, I was even more intrigued and knew it was time to start playing closer attention to the young Londoner.
The four-track CMYK EP is Blake’s first release for the illustrious R&S label, following shorter singles for Hessle Audio, Brainmath and Hemlock. The opener and title track is enough to prick up anyone’s ears, but it’s hard to put my finger on what makes it so good. Is it Blake’s own vocals that make it, alongside brazen samples of Kelis, Aaliyah and more? Is it those hazy synths, bubbling around with the claps, piano keys and subtle sub-bass before erupting? Either way, it works, and it’s the most anthemic thing Blake’s done to date.
You can barely make out the words on ‘Footnotes’’s re-tuned vocal, while ‘I’ll Stay’ sees Blake drop his trademark synths and sepia vocals to a slower tempo. For me the highlight of CMYK though, is closer ‘Postpone’, with its beautifully arranged chords, ghostly wails and crashing drums.
With his obvious love for R’n’B at the forefront, CMYK sees Blake play with samples – sometimes chopping them to a point where they’re no longer recognisable, sometimes leaving them barely touched – and combine them with his own harmonious arrangements, somewhere between the dancefloor and hotel corridors, on a super sleek EP. I’m sold.
factmag.com
listen
Booka Shade - More!
Booka Shade have reached a point where pretty much everything they do-- both as musicians and heads of dance imprint Get Physical-- are scrutinized. And in the past few years, the scrutiny hasn't always been positive. The duo's last record, The Sun & Neon Light, found them out in front of the decks aiming to craft a crossover techno-pop album. Depending on who you asked it was either a brave experiment and stab at something new or a frustrating move from a duo responsible for some of techno's best 21st century tracks. Whatever the case, Booka Shade's stock is down after Neon Light, a sometimes brooding affair that delivered an attempt at growing an organic heart in the midst of their robotic gullets. The guys even sang on the thing.
More! is a re-donning of their producer/percussionist hats. Bona fide beats dominate the record and the vocals are sparse and handled by guests like Yello and Chelonis R. Jones. But, at the same time, there truly is more on this record-- there are more electro-inspired keyboard lines and mood changes. This record can't be called "minimal." That said, the tracks here are missing the melodic weight that lent Booka Shade singles like "In White Rooms" or "Body Language" their crossover panache. Those synthesizer lines-- once delayed, drunken, and enigmatic-- helped tracks feel spontaneous (a feeling reinforced by Booka Shade playing live percussion on stage).
Synths throughout the record are more punctual, like more like a Berlin train than a gyrating body. This facet seems to be used even to comic effect, as on the opening "Havanna Sex Dwarf", whose staccato squelches and robot singing deadpan the unspoken words novelty song. It's certainly a weird cut to begin an album by a group usually constrained to the darkness of the club or a late-night living room. The record really gets going with the brooding "Regenerate", but from there it's all pretty standard fare, with four-on-the-floor beats at inconsistent levels of innovation and a few Kraftwerkian synth lines ping-ponging throughout the tracks. Jones turns in an uncharacteristically low-key performance on "Bad Love", which might have passed for an early 80s R&B hit. Yello vocalist Dieter Meier grumbles his way through "Divine", not requiring a government-issued ID to remind you that he's 65.
But for the most part, the beats and the synths are the stars of the show here. They're not as compelling as in the past-- maybe only four albums into their career, the duo is preferring to color inside the lines. But for all those hits and misses, fans will keep listening, keep scrutinizing. Booka Shade gained that blessing, or the curse, as the result of consistent innovation.
pitchfork.com
listen
More! is a re-donning of their producer/percussionist hats. Bona fide beats dominate the record and the vocals are sparse and handled by guests like Yello and Chelonis R. Jones. But, at the same time, there truly is more on this record-- there are more electro-inspired keyboard lines and mood changes. This record can't be called "minimal." That said, the tracks here are missing the melodic weight that lent Booka Shade singles like "In White Rooms" or "Body Language" their crossover panache. Those synthesizer lines-- once delayed, drunken, and enigmatic-- helped tracks feel spontaneous (a feeling reinforced by Booka Shade playing live percussion on stage).
Synths throughout the record are more punctual, like more like a Berlin train than a gyrating body. This facet seems to be used even to comic effect, as on the opening "Havanna Sex Dwarf", whose staccato squelches and robot singing deadpan the unspoken words novelty song. It's certainly a weird cut to begin an album by a group usually constrained to the darkness of the club or a late-night living room. The record really gets going with the brooding "Regenerate", but from there it's all pretty standard fare, with four-on-the-floor beats at inconsistent levels of innovation and a few Kraftwerkian synth lines ping-ponging throughout the tracks. Jones turns in an uncharacteristically low-key performance on "Bad Love", which might have passed for an early 80s R&B hit. Yello vocalist Dieter Meier grumbles his way through "Divine", not requiring a government-issued ID to remind you that he's 65.
But for the most part, the beats and the synths are the stars of the show here. They're not as compelling as in the past-- maybe only four albums into their career, the duo is preferring to color inside the lines. But for all those hits and misses, fans will keep listening, keep scrutinizing. Booka Shade gained that blessing, or the curse, as the result of consistent innovation.
pitchfork.com
listen
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