electronica
Owen Richards
As collaborations go, it’s a doozy. Karen O’s signature vocals over Danger Mouse’s production – it was always going to pique interest. And Lux Prima does much to meet expectations, gorgeous cinematic soundscapes that flit between haunting and defiant. At its best, its damn near mesmerising. But for those expecting a genre-defying, structure-blowing new horizon, it falls just short.Of course, those parameters are wholly unfair to judge an album, but it was hard not expect something ground-breaking after the titular lead single “Lux Prima”. Clocking in over nine minutes, a synth groove Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It is hard to absorb the news that Keith Flint of The Prodigy has been found dead at his home in Essex. Keith Flint! The guy with the double Mohican and panda eye-liner who terrified Middle America in the video for “Firestarter”. He was ever an integral part of The Prodigy’s unstoppable live electronic dance assault and, while it’s too early to ponder such things, it’s difficult to imagine them without him.Prior to global fame that found the band circa 1997, The Prodigy had been a breakout rave act, hitting the UK charts with hits such as “Charly”, “Voodoo People”, “Out of Space” and “No Good Read more ...
mark.kidel
Massive Attack have travelled a long way from the Dugout, the Bristol bar where the collective first tried their hand at spinning discs for a crowd whose cultural mix reflected the constant ferment of one of Britain’s most vibrant cities. The city welcomed them back, warmly as it will always do, at the Steel Yard, a vast purpose-built performance space in Filton, home of the Rolls Royce works that make jet engines for Boeing, still vibrant with the ghosts of the engineers and fitters that helped create Concorde, that symbol of European cooperation and future progress.Massive Attack’s set, Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Twenty years on from No Angel, the most successful debut ever by a British woman which went on to become the top-selling album, worldwide, of 2001, Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong releases her fifth album. Spare output by most standards, though she has contributed songs (Britney Spears, Rihanna) and backing vocals elsewhere in the interim.Dido has described Still On My Mind as “accidental” because she never plans anything, and the experience of its creation “magical”, perhaps because it was all so unexpected. It’s an album intended to capture “the rush” she herself gets Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although In the Dark comprises 11 tracks of outward-facing contemporary North European electronica-infused, dance-edged pop along the lines of “Faded”, the 2015 international hit helmed by Norwegian DJ/producer Alan Walker, an undercurrent implies a fondness for the Eighties.The evidence racks up. “Scarcity” sports a vocoder-like vocal effect. The title track and album opener suggests a familiarity with the keyboard saturation of Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes”. The stuttering effects on “Erase You” and “Round Two” are akin to what cropped up when sampling keyboards became endemic. And a fair Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Let’s cut straight to the chase. Here are reviews of 48 records, running riot across genre boundaries and categorizations, from preposterous pop metal to woodland-themed classical piano pieces. It’s the wildest vinyl ride in review-land, an adventure for the ears. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHVula Viel Do Not Be Afraid (Vula Viel)To describe this record is not to do it justice: Vula Viel are a three-piece investigating the possibilities of the Ghanaian xylophone (the gyil), using it to explore minimalist Afro-jazz potential of the traditional music of Africa’s Dagaaba people. So far so dusty and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Of the 20-plus names gathered on the superbly packaged Kankyō Ongaku, it’s likely that only Yellow Magic Orchestra and their members Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto are familiar to most non-Japanese listeners. Initially, it seems a big ask to hope buyers will fork out for compilation tracking potentially uncharted musical territory but the full title stresses that what’s heard isn’t so perplexing.Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980–1990 collects exactly what it says. “Kankyō ongaku” translates as environmental music. Nothing here is unapproachable. Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Jimmy Hendix’s Greenwich Village studios are the venue for LCD Soundsystem’s third live album, which features the most recent touring line-up playing a set heavy with songs from 2017’s American Dream album along with a smattering of covers. Live albums often come with the promise of dynamic abandon – the chance to see a band communicating directly with their fans and pushing emotional dynamics and song structures to the limit, but here, in a closed studio, there’s none of that – so what is the point? The answer for most bands would be “not much”, but LCD Soundsystem aren’t most Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A compilation on which Philip Glass and Terry Riley rub shoulders with Controlled Bleeding and Smegma is going to be interesting. Throw in Data-Bank-A, Dog as Master, NON and Suicide, and it becomes clear what’s striven for is an all-encompassing overview of something particular rather than a miscellany of random names included as attention-grabbers.Over its four CDs, Third Noise Principle explores the world described by its lengthy sub-title as Formative North American Electronica 1975–1984, Excursions in Proto Synth pop, DIY Techno, Noise & Ambient Exploration. It’s the follow-up to Read more ...
Katie Colombus
There is an inevitable change that comes with moving from the realms of self-produced bedroom blubstep to slickly-produced West Cali smoothness that will cause chaotic realms of loss of self, fans and at some level, originality. But let’s not forget – this is surely what Blake has always been aiming for. Yes, Assume Form has a degree of soullessness that is a stark contrast to his self-titled first album – but that’s part of the journey from angsty, bleak, indie-dubstep to successful, Mercury Prize-winning musician.The level of collaboration on this album (Metro Boomin, Travis Scott, Moses Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Russian trio Gnoomes have created small waves over the last couple of years with their woozy psychedelia. One of its defining factors is the way the band have utilised Soviet-era synthesizers. During the Cold War it wasn’t only weaponry and the space race that defined the endless competitiveness between the United States and the USSR; the technologies of sound were also an area of rivalry. For those seeking to make strange and wonderful analogue electronica using kit many miles away from brand names such as Korg and Moog, then, there are rich pickings. One such is Gnoomes drummer Pavel Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Why You So Crazy is a woozy, disorientating and spaced-out affair with a similar understated production to the Dandy Warhols last album, 2016’s Distortland. Long gone is the brash, anthemic guitar glam-pop of the turn of the century. In those days, the Dandys gobbled horse-size pills, wouldn’t touch you if you were the last junky on Earth, and just wanted to be Bohemian like you. They were hipsters, before that became a term of abuse, with songs littered with tongue-in-cheek humour and Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s snarky barbs. However, the Dandy Warhols certainly haven’t settled down into middle Read more ...