Showing posts with label Burial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burial. Show all posts
on Sunday, 26 December 2010
Dronea Dronea have been banging on about Forest Swords for a very long time, way before people slapped bizarre new genre's on their sound, whether that be "Chillwave" "Hypnagogic Pop" or "Glo Fi", the truth be told Forest Swords owe more to Burial that what I believe the aforementioned terms to mean. As such i steered clear of the genre as I didn't massively love the Swords, though they are finally growing on me.

Label mates Rangers on the other hand hit all the right buttons, the music is chilled, it glows and whilst maybe not quite hit a state of hypnagogia it is certainly early evening, summer music. Everything about it is just fantastic, the bedroom-esque production, the not quite perfect EQ and the ability to stay the right side of both cheese and funk with those oh so rubbery bass lines.

The best way to describe the music would probably be to imagine what people in the late 80's/ early 90's imagined the music of today or even what the future in general would be like, it has a strong nostalgic feel, some would say like peering into someone elses half remembered memories, fuzzy around the edges and missing clarity and complete sense. I can't help but think of Deloreans and Back to the Future 2 for some reason.

Suburban Tours is an album that shouldn't work but strangely does, quite instantly loveable and full of shelf life. Along with the excellent Bear Creak, laid back jazz funk bass to make Howard Moon week at the knees, Out Past Curfew, through Woodland Hills, Ross Downs to the aptly named Bel Air are simply genius, like Ducktails discovering the thumb of the Mighty Boosh's Hitcher.

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:
Another unfathomably great transmission from the mighty Olde English Spelling Bee - compressing a world of hazy 1980's pop edits and television broadcasts on one dense, oddly unsettling LP - so good* Rangers aka Joe Knight sits us in the passenger seat for another incredible cruise around the grey interzone of 1980's suburbia on this, his excellent debut LP release. 'Suburban Tours' was inspired by his move from the outskirts of his native Dallas, Texas, to a rainy San Francisco, where his loneliness grew into eleven tracks of pop-inspired, avant-smudged melancholia. The obvious comparison point is James Ferraro or Ariel Pink and their expressions of white American solitary poplife, but the tape editing processes and drained 80s funk of these tracks gives 'Suburban Tours' it's own autistic aura. Knight draws on the foggy memory of records by Steely Dan, Weather Report and Prefab Sprout, assembling a degraded sheen of 80s funk that's generally not found among many of his fellow Hypnagogic explorers. The uncomforting factor comes to light when his edits bunch into looped cul-de-sacs, like we're exploring the landscaped terrain of some gated community and the road/tape inexplicably folds into itself, we feel like we should be moving forward, wanting to get out of there, but we're were not getting anywhere. Perhaps this is his take on the stultifying nature of American middle-class suburban life? Or English, for that matter. Either way, the effect is oddly moving, blending the neon evening glow of an inner-city night drive with tones of a greyer, and more insipid suburban landscape.



on Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Decided to put this on whilst wallowing in self pity this afternoon, all sneezed out and drained of energy, we Brits are not cut out for this kind of weather. I'd forgot quite how good this was and quite how much I loved it, after all this was the record, although not being dubstep, helped we finally crack dubstep, although still not Burial, and ultimately shaped my listening trends for the last half of the year, pointing through various sources to artists such as Mount Kimbie, Teebs, Gold Panda, Shed, John Roberts, Digital Mystikz and a whole host of others.

I'm not really sure what genre this is, maybe instrumental hip hop, Boomkat choose to label it beats/downtempo/boogie, whichever way it is awesome, i can at least guarantee you that much. Despite an off putting first track or so this mix really picks up the pace quickly and peeks between tracks 7 &9 which are simply excellence after excellence, maybe topped only by the incredible closing track Eat my Garbage 2, 8 minutes plus of dubby drums and filthy synth stabs. A musical trip well worth investing your time in.


Spoiler : Reviews:
Independant: More of a stopgap collection of incidental music and rudimentary beatscapes than a fully-considered follow-up to 2007's epochal I'll Sleep When You're Dead, this is nonetheless infused with El-P's characteristic dystopian sci-fi mood and edgy, paranoiac tone.

"Take You Out At The Ball Game" opens matters with waltzing strings sketching the melody before it's crushed by big drums, synths and indecipherable crowd chanting; thereafter, many of the tracks employ deep bass synth burrs, crunching beats and John Carpenter-esque lead synth lines. But it's El-P's way with a drum track that's best showcased here, particularly on the closing seven-minute "Eat My Garbage 2", where the sequences vary from the stilted to the slick and jazzy.

Boomkat: Continuing the tradition of 1998's 'Little Johnny From The Hospital' and the more recent 'Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx2', El-P serves 15 diverse instrumentals for Def Jux. He largely shuns samples for this LP, instead favouring a powerfully synth and drum driven excursion with fragments of electro wired with a heavy rock vibe.


on Thursday, 27 December 2007
Pantha Du Prince - This Bliss (Dial)

In a year when the phrase dubstep has been used to death, a year when Burial have been hyped to death, if not in the media at least in the "forum" scene, and both Burial & The Field have released so called "contenders" for album of the year, I've found myself a little more than disappointed with their output, I will admit to perhaps not giving them the attention they clearly do deserve, after all these are recommendations from people I trust, however when you stumble across an album as instantly great as Pantha Du Princes This Bliss it makes me wonder whether i'll even bother to take the time out to give them albums another chance.

I'm sure some will argue over the genres, one is dubstep the others minimal techno but ultimately they all fit into the same bracket and for I Pantha Du Prince comes in clear winner.

Soundwise I can't really argue with Last.Fm but let the music do the talking.

"Pantha du Prince, also known as Henrik Weber, is a minimal artist producing music in affiliation with Hamburg's Dial Records. His music is often characterised by a hypnotic, intricate combination of melodic chimes and dark, heavy techno beats, but does not confine itself to a single sound or strain of minimal techno. Arrangements are lush and textural, energising yet melancholy; a plethora of sounds and ideas unified by a consistent underlying tech-house beat."


Sources -
on Monday, 3 December 2007


Lacrosse - This New Year Will Be For You and Me (Tapete)


I have a thing for Deers, well not a thing, just that I think in animated form they have a real elegance and pull, my favourite t-shirt being the deer covered Bat for Lashes tshirt, my favourite character in Willy Fog, Brigadier Corn. As such it’s no real surprise how easily i was led to the excellent front cover of the new album from Lacrosse,

I can't really argue with the Last.Fm description as follows:

"...above all, Lacrosse is five boys and one girl making fantastic pop music. From a basement in Stockholm, Lacrosse brings you love and happiness in songs so catchy that you can't help singing along! With a lot of energy, two intense lead vocalists, incredibly sweet guitar melodies and blazing drum beats, Lacrosse is the musical equivalent of endless summer nights when the world is young and beautiful and everything seems possible."


Lovely and instantly loveable, this pales last month’s Tullycraft love affair into insignificance, I know I fall in love with a new band on a weekly basis, it was Lavender Diamond prior to Tullycraft, the Aislers Set and the Blow before that but here we have something truly special, this is the album Architecture in Helsinki have always threatened to make, this is how good In Case We Die could have been had each and every song been as good as It's 5! and Frenchy I'm Faking. Canadian summers, roller skates and good times abound, I’ve had this album on constant repeat since I got it and can't see that changing any time soon, a potential late entry for album of the year I propose, certainly more fun than the pundits choice of Burial, a discovery and a half.

Website
MySpace


Lacrosse - This New Year Will Be For You And Me Play MP3
Lacrosse - Who Will Bring Us Together MP3
Lacrosse - You Can't Say No Forever MP3
Lacrosse - Sunshiner MP3


Sources:
Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream Blog
Fingertips Blog
Lets Pretend we're Bunny Rabbits Blog