• Four Tet – New Energy

    October 7, 2017 - By 

      Almost two decades since launching his electronic solo career (alongside his work in post-rock band Fridge) Kieran Hebden – AKA Four Tet – has become something of an icon of the genre. Originally pioneering ‘folktronica’ – a label he was never keen on but which attempts to describe his electronic manipulation of acoustic instruments and samples on early 2000s albums like Pause and Rounds – more recent records like Beautiful Rewind have seen him shift his focus from the bedroom to the club, moving further in the direction of downtempo house, all while working on collaborations with the likes of…

  • Kamasi Washington – Harmony of Difference

    October 3, 2017 - By 

    Hip hop was born from jazz. Powerful drum beats from 70s jazz and jazz funk gave early pioneers Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash an abundance of ingredients to create an entirely new style of music composed of their predecessors’ songs. It’s an influence that stuck through the 80s and 90s, and whether it’s J Dilla ’s sophisticated sampling or Notorious B.I.G’s Cannonball Adderly influenced flow, the fingerprints of jazz are all over hip hop. So what happens when jazz is relegated to “music for goatee scratching elitists”, and hip hop takes up the mantle as the art form for black…

  • The Killers – Wonderful Wonderful

    October 2, 2017 - By 

    One of the golden rules of making any playlist is that you should absolutely never ever start the night with ‘Mr. Brightside’. ‘Mr. Brightside’ should not feature anywhere in the first two hours of a night. Since its phenomenal success 16 years ago – which earned it a spot on the Billboard Top 100 to this day – ‘Mr. Brightside’ has been hailed as one of the most popular “peak” songs for any appropriate party, be that a wedding or whatever you’re having yourself. It reaches its maximum potential only when coupled with unsafe amounts of Jaeger at 2am with crowds…

  • Eoin Dolan – UBIQUE

    October 2, 2017 - By 

    Ireland might be one of the world’s greatest surfing locations, but it has always lacked some of the simple pleasures that come with the territory. Chiefly among these is the music. Surf rock made a huge splash in 60s southern California with pioneers like Dick Dale and The Beach Boys ushering in a profoundly new sound. Their music is so infused with that time that it’s become almost impossible not to hear ‘Surfin’ USA’ when imagining surfer dudes and dudettes “riding the barrel”, so to speak. The Irish coast, on the other hand, is not the most inspiring place for…

  • Protomartyr – Relatives In Descent

    October 1, 2017 - By 

    You could be forgiven for thinking that any and all modern articulations of “rock music” have become politically toothless. As a medium, it doesn’t quite seem as suited to critiques of society and culture as it once did. That being said, it seems Detroit four-piece Protomartyr would be inclined to disagree. Relatives In Descent, their fourth album, finds them wrestling with the nature and form of truth, spurred on by the vertiginous, collective sense of History swarming violently around the present. Having recently signed to UK Label Domino, the band retreated to L.A. in March of this year to record…

  • Wolf Alice – Visions of a Life

    September 29, 2017 - By 

    It’s rarely a good sign when all of the singles on an album are placed at the start. It’s almost an admission to the listener that says ‘Look, this isn’t great but at least the first couple of tunes are alright and you can just switch it off after that’. The only issue here is that even the singles on offer aren’t particularly inspiring. Wolf Alice’s sophomore offering, Visions Of A Life seems to lose all of the effortlessness and vitality of its predecessor and is bland at its best; cringeworthy at its worst. If this isn’t the epitome of…

  • The Horrors – V

    September 28, 2017 - By 

    Starter for ten: Is V merely an incredibly unimaginative title to mark The Horrors filth album, or is it a big fat fuck off to the establishment? Let’s presume for a minute that it’s a cleverly hidden version of the latter. After all, The Horrors themselves have promised a return to the dark shadows they once occupied, stating that they wanted to “get nasty”. Coincide this with the 10 year anniversary of debut Strange House, a happy-go-lucky melee of punk-rock, hairspray and garage–psych that seems like such a distant memory next to the commercial success of the much more danceable…

  • Rostam – Half-Light

    September 28, 2017 - By 

    In a recent interview to promote his debut solo album, Rostam Batmanglij told The New Yorker: “Many of the songs on Half-Light feel as though they could have become Vampire Weekend songs except that they go somewhere else entirely. My music is about identity. This album is about identity.” To a certain degree he wasn’t wrong. The majority of his solo endeavour could easily find a home on one of Vampire Weekend’s three albums. With regard to the musical identity presented in this record one can extensively hear sonic traits honed throughout his tenure with his former band. Naturally, similarities between…

  • Death From Above – Outrage! Is Now

    September 25, 2017 - By 

    You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine is fast approaching its thirteenth birthday. Released in October 2004, it was Death From Above 1979’s first, and for a long time only full length release. The duo of Sebastien Grainger and Jesse Keeler had made a name for themselves as snotty noise brats with an attitude, reflected in their statement when their label requested that they didn’t use the name of the then all-conquering dance punk imprint Death From Above. The statement began with “FUCK DFA RECORDS FUCK JAMES MURPHY WE DECLARE JIHAD ON THEM HOLY WAR ENDING IN THIER [sic] DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT…”…

  • Shrug Life – ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    September 22, 2017 - By 

    Every now and then you get hit with shocking realisations about local groups: some of them are actually brilliant. Not just in “ah for a bunch of lads from Fairview, they sure can write a tune” manner, but in a real proper sense. The North and South have produced a few of these: And So I Watch You From Afar, Hozier, Rubberbandits and Lisa Hannigan, to name a few. Given how exclusive of a club this really is though, it’s a marvellous joy to encounter them in the wild. Dublin’s Shrug Life is one of those groups. Bouncy, energetic Gang of…