• Foo Fighters – Sonic Highways

    November 28, 2014 - By 

    Having started from such humble beginnings, the Foo Fighters really have come a long way. Who honestly could have called it, that the drummer from that band where the lead singer killed himself would eventually become one of the more vital figures in mainstream rock? The thing about Dave Grohl is that the man actively seems to want us all to be better. He wants us to know about the bands and the sounds that shaped his music, partially to help us appreciate his records in a whole new light, but mostly to make sure that some of the more…

  • Mark Kozelek – Sings Christmas Carols

    November 26, 2014 - By 

    “I just don’t understand Christmas I guess” laments Mark Kozelek in a spoken word section of the opener ‘Christmas Time Is Here’, and while he is reading lines originally spoken by Charlie Brown it sets the tone for the entire record. The former Red House Painters‘ singer Kozelek attempts to understand the holiday season on Sings Christmas Carols by exploring the emotional depth of these Christmas songs and escaping from his depression and melancholy. Mark Kozelek is no stranger to cover albums, having released a downtempo covers album of AC/DC songs entitled What’s Next to the Moon and Tiny Cities, an…

  • Arca – Xen

    November 25, 2014 - By 

    Understandably Arca’s debut album Xen has been eagerly anticipated in electronic circles and beyond. A couple of strong EPs in Stretch 1 and Stretch 2, his astounding &&&&& mixtape, productions for FKA Twigs and some guy called Kanye West as well as forthcoming productions on the next Bjork album – the London-based Venezuelan producer is hot property. Xen is supposedly an androgynous alter-ego of Arca whose “mere existence is kind of repulsive and attractive at once” he told The Fader and it’s this idea of these two opposites co-existing that makes Xen so endearing. The hip-hop focus of Arca’s previous…

  • Boxcutter & Defcon – New Yen EP

    November 24, 2014 - By 

    Veteran Northern Irish producer and multi-talented wizard-man Boxcutter (Barry Lynn) has had a fairly enviable run of success since his debut for Planet Mu records back in 2006. A string of high-grade LP and EP releases, collaborations and remixes for the likes of Amon Tobin, Falty DL and Space Dimension Controller – as well as countless headline shows worldwide – would suggest that Lynn might deserve a relaxing day or two off. The release of his latest EP New Yen, in collaboration with fellow NI producer Defcon, suggests otherwise. In fact, what it does suggest is that Lynn is in…

  • …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – IX

    November 20, 2014 - By 

    Texan group …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead transgress a variety of genres with their latest release IX, once again showcasing the bands ability to remain an enigmatic force. IX, the follow up to 2012’s Lost Songs, presents the listener with a jigsaw of melody and harmony, indicative of Trail of Dead’s ability to challenge all genres. Opening track ‘The Doomsday Book’ is uplifting, repetitive rock with no set vocal structure, which fans will certainly be accustomed to. The transition between ‘The Doomsday Book’ and second track ‘Jaded Apostles’ is a strange one, perfectly illustrating the…

  • Mr. Oizo – The Church

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    Mr. Oizo, the alias of French electro-extraordinaire and director Quentin Dupieux, has come a long way from providing the soundtrack for small-time, petty criminal puppet Flat Eric and his Levi jeans thieving shenanigans. Well known to those who came of age in the late nineties and early millennium, the track ‘Flat Beat’ and its fluffy, yellow mascot, represented a crossover of cultural motifs and fused a relationship between image and sound that is still instantly recognisable over a decade later. More importantly, with ‘Flat Beat,’ Dupieux created a track that was flat-out immense; one that was able to transcend the…

  • VA – Slowly Exploding: 10 Years of Perc Trax

    November 14, 2014 - By 

    Techno is in a very different place from when Ali Wells, better known as Perc, started up his Perc Trax label with his own ‘Ice Cream for Kenton’ single. A solid 62 (thus far) 12”s later, a bunch of digital releases and a handful of albums later, here we are in 2014 where Perc Trax’s brand of blistering machine funk is in vogue to an extent not seen since the 90s. To celebrate a decade of the label’s existence we’re given two CDs; a compilation of new Perc Trax material from both label regulars (Perc, Truss, Forward Strategy Group) and…

  • iamamiwhoami – Blue

    November 12, 2014 - By 

    Sweden’s iamamiwhoami are a curious wee thing. Self releasing electronic albums every year with corresponding YouTube videos providing a unique visual interpretation of the  soundscape the band creates. Their third album, Blue, is not different. For the sake of this review, we’ll be stripping away all of the multimedia whizzbang flashiness and looking at the album in isolation. In this regard, Blue is an interesting but ultimately straightforward synthpop album. The thick, deep bass synths cover the low of the mix, like some kind of heavy musical butter or a laboured simile. The vocals range from the silky and ethereal…

  • Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2

    November 10, 2014 - By 

    If you’ve been out of the loop with regards to hip-hop for the last number of years, if nothing from the genre has taken you by the scruff of the neck and pulled you into its roughneck world the way it may have before, then consider Run the Jewels 2 to be an assertive wake up call. This second collaborative effort from the duo of Killer Mike and El-P has had the Internet aflame with hype since its free release on October 24th of this year, and it has effortlessly hammered itself into the consciousness of both the underground and…

  • Grouper – Ruins

    November 4, 2014 - By 

    As far as an album’s backstory goes, Portland’s Liz Harris has given us a good one for her latest release as Grouper. Recorded predominantly in a remote cottage in Portugal in 2011, far from the trappings of what we call civilisation, Ruins is a collection of quiet, deeply personal songs. After last year’s The Man Who Died In His Boat, a companion piece to her most famous work Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill – both of which circle around distorted guitar and chilling vocal layers – Ruins is not so much back to basics as a rejection of…