rescuing musical virtue in distress.
So many musicians working in the broad electronic music field seem to be inspired by the sounds of the past, by those early post-punk pioneers, New Romantics, Blitz Kids and 80’s synth-pop warriors. That in itself is odd because those genre-benders were always looking to the future, were forward-thinking and futuristic in their outlook. Which... Continue Reading →
There has, for obvious reasons, been a wave of artists making music reflecting the times of late. After all it is in times of adversity when the most interesting music is made. Rock 'n' Roll, Punk, Hip-Hop, Rave…all music born out of heady combinations of frustration, disenfranchisement, rebellion, a desire for cultural or political change... Continue Reading →
This latest album from Noah Avery might be the perfect example of how to make music in the current age. As technology has widened the possibilities for the grassroots musician and attitudes towards the tribalism and generic labels of the past have changed, today’s music maker has a freedom that has possibly never existed before.... Continue Reading →
The last time I encountered Daniel Angelus he was splicing dreamstate pop with hazy synthwave and understated dance grooves and lamenting the loss and longings of two far-flung lovers separated by the vast emptiness of space. And fans of Reflection, the song in question, will find much to their taste on this 4-track outing, the... Continue Reading →
Eccentric, theatrical and immediately likeable, this 20-track album from two of Belgium’s most celebrated musicians encompasses years of genre-hopping and underlines the duo’s ability to find creative sparks in almost any setting. At times pop, European electro, Brit-Pop, punk, garage rock and radio-friendly tunes just to show they can do it all. Kloot Per W... Continue Reading →
If anyone ever tries to convince you that the technology that was enabled sampling and all the studio innovations that much modern music is built on has taken all the skill out of writing songs, then just play them The Keymakers. There will always be those artist who use such advancements to make up for... Continue Reading →
Things I Like: Unnecessarily convoluted song titles. Bands who don’t understand the term “generic boundaries”. Tongue in cheek lyrics. Silliness. Sultry beats. Sleazy grooves. Music with a larger than life personally. So the chances of me not loving the wonderfully named Fans of Jimmy Century was always going to be pretty slim indeed. Based in... Continue Reading →
The term New Age music might conjure images of triple albums of whale noises or the sort of trippy folk music you hear playing in Glastonbury bookshops, but surely new age music can be seen as any music that is ahead of the curve for its moment in time. All creative break-throughs from rock’n’roll to... Continue Reading →
If the worlds of EDM, dance and electro-pop have always been seen as a place where style over substance is the norm, where the shallow and shiny out ranks the deep and meaningful, where the quick fix is preferable to music which makes you think, then Of Codes Off Course is something that you need... Continue Reading →
Musical pairings often seem like odd partnerships when you look at them a bit more closely. Take Days of Thunder, a green-fingered, eco-academic and musical avant-gardener and a creature of the night, rock and roller don’t seem to be the obvious collaborators but music is all about celebrating the common ground rather than worrying about... Continue Reading →
Imagine if jazz had evolved from the New Romantic synth experimentation of the late 70's or that punk had been instigated after the invention of the affordable synthesiser or even that computers had been programmed to write acoustic pop songs. All unlikely scenarios for sure but each of those does say something about the three... Continue Reading →
Starting an album review of a band which, up until this point, you knew nothing about, is an interesting thing to undertake. You go into it without any preconceptions, any detailed back story and knowing that anything could greet you on the other side. Often you are met with the familiar and the predictable, something... Continue Reading →
No matter what anyone tells you about current musical fashions, what the zeitgeist might happen to be blowing in from cooler taste making circles, what the papers say is the next big thing or any of that sort of rhetoric, one thing never changes. The underground, the outside, the left field, the other…call it what... Continue Reading →
Pop music gets a rough deal these days, mainly because there seem to be too many rules to follow regarding what pop is allowed to be and should be about. This means it either falls into the commercial, production line sound, or wanders too far outside the accepted parameters for modern popular consumption. Porcelain People... Continue Reading →
It’s very easy to listen to electro-pop and try to draw a thread back to earlier post-punk pioneers. But choosing to wield synths as your musical weapons of choice doesn’t make you Depeche Mode, in the same way that painting a landscape doesn’t mean that you are just trying to be Constable. Stonerpop is certainly... Continue Reading →
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that there were no second acts in American lives. He also said a bit about trombone players and jazz music. He also predicted that pop-punk has had its day. Maybe. He was wrong about a lot of it. Eleventyseven are not only back after a three year hiatus, with a... Continue Reading →
It’s funny how the idea of a flat earth has become a major point of contention, a stand against academia, experts and scientific thought. I’m not really sure where these particular Flat Earth People stand, whether they are for, against or just being wilfully controversial, but to be honest it doesn’t really matter, it is... Continue Reading →
It always pays to know your place in musical history, knowing where you come from is just as important as knowing where you are going. It is something that Collegians seem to understand all too well as within the swirling depths of Black Mass you can here everything from the pulsing echoes of Depeche Mode... Continue Reading →
Never judge a book by its cover but both the title of this album, the wordiness of the track names and even the name of the artist in all its lower case glory are clear sign posts that what follows is going to be something a bit left field, a bit special, totally unique. connect_icut... Continue Reading →
Rock music has a tough time in the modern age. Gone are the days when it was enough to kick out a heavy blues, three chord jam, the modern audience wants more musical bang for its buck. So whilst some bands head off in search of new alt-rock horizons and others lighten the load and... Continue Reading →
Step into a swirling, warping re-imagining of The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds constructed with analog synths, glitchy vocal effects, trip hop beats, and kitten samples… plentiful kitten samples. _____________________________________________________________ I was a tad apprehensive about listening to a full LP re-interpretation of one of my favourite albums, but I’m not sure why, as I happily... Continue Reading →
Even in this day where cover versions, sampling and reworking of classic songs is the norm, there are some artists, to me anyway, whose music you plunder at your peril. Do not touch the Leonard Cohen collection unless you are going to find something new to bring out of his dark, sensual visions. Open up... Continue Reading →
The debut Hologram Teen album certainly arrives with all the right credentials in place as it is the solo project of none other than Morgane Lhote, the long-term avante-guardian of the keyboards for seminal indie adventurers Stereolab during what many consider to be their creative high water mark. And as someone long associated with such... Continue Reading →
Future predictions rarely hold true, if they did we would all have personal jet packs, be living on the moon or in the dark dystopian city scapes envisioned in Blade Runner. But predicting the future is just what we love to do, in print, in film, in fact, fiction and fashion, and of course in... Continue Reading →
Who indeed. Perhaps the sort of people who wilfully mix warped Bee Gees doing hard-disco with Vangelis-esque cinematic electronica? Maybe they are those sort of people who love the synth-pop of the post-punk period and wish to see it given a new lease of life for a whole new generation of ears. Certainly they are... Continue Reading →
Recently signed to Manchester’s Eromeda Records, They Called Him Zone continues its mission of building beguiling electronic landscapes. If the previous encounter with Crow Swan Wolf had something of dystopia about it, suggesting decaying urban vistas and shattered industrial wastelands, Just Fall conjures a whole different scene. This time out there is something of a... Continue Reading →
As any album proudly bearing labels such as relaxation and meditation hoves into view, I have a tendency to brace for a salvo of head shop, whale noise nonsense and wind chime cacophony. But if more people working in such a broad and often misrepresented genre made music like Christopher Rapkin’s Release, then there would... Continue Reading →
Being a reviewer of pretty much any genre that comes at me, obviously there are strengths and weaknesses in my arsenal of scribbled thoughts. Particularly when I see those three little letters in close proximity, E, D and M, I automatically worry about how I am going to find something new and convincing to say... Continue Reading →
The mercurially named I, Symptom continue their singular quest to explore the point of impact between dystopian electronica and trashy post-punk forms. But whereas last time around Triple Exclamation Mark was a blend of urgent warped rock and driven, dance orientated sounds, this time they offer up a slow burning, trippy meander through the solar... Continue Reading →
The mysterious and mercurial Hefe Heetroc is an interesting proposition. The music sits somewhere beyond conventional rap, past the point where glitchy electro starts to unravel into something more like the death throes of a misfiring super computer or half heard deep space noise. It is almost a deconstruction of the genre, or at least... Continue Reading →