• Mac DeMarco – Salad Days

    April 23, 2014 - By 

    “What Mom doesn’t know/ has taken its toll on me” sings Mac DeMarco on album number three’s lead single, ‘Passing Out the Pieces’. It’s a line that immediately anchors the listener in with what to expect from the rest of his critically praised, self-produced 2014 release, Salad Days. Remarkably the title of the album itself would be far more in line with the Mac (real name: Vernor Winfield McBriare Smith IV) of 2012; the Mac who gained a semi-cult following with some hilarious post-watershed Youtube clips and an anthemic ode to his favourite cigarettes, Viceroy. However in true Mac style…

  • Confab Review: Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks

    April 17, 2014 - By 

    Wait, who?  Avey Tare. He’s out of Animal Collective. Oh right. Has he gone solo? Not really, Animal Collective like to keep themselves busy with side projects. So what’s the Slasher Flicks bit? Is it horror picture music? Well I suppose that might depend on your tastes. But essentially no, there’s no long, suspenseful atmospherics followed by sudden dramatic explosions with added bone-crunching sound effects. Nor is it black metal. Is it just a name then? Good question. It does seem a little bit tacked on, a convenient story providing opportunities for blood-dripping photo shoots, spooky artwork and a comically…

  • Squarepusher / Z-Machines – Music for Robots

    April 11, 2014 - By 

    As one of Warp Records’ longest serving artists, Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) has rarely shied away from changing his direction or pushing the boundaries of music production; tropes of the label’s general output. One only need listen through his impressive back catalogue to understand that Jenkinson is an artist who thrives on the new and that stagnation, seemingly, is a very dirty word. Take his experiments with live instrumentation and sequenced beats for example; there is plenty of evidence to suggest that not only is Jenkinson an extremely talented live musician, but an enviably capable savant when it comes to processing…

  • Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else

    April 10, 2014 - By 

    Prior to 2012’s Attack On Memory, Cloud Nothings were often found buoyant in the same lo-fi slacker waters as Ty Segall, Wavves and a myriad of other Pitchfork darlings. Memory’s somewhat messianic production from Steve Albini explored the four piece’s heavier fundamental aesthetics and lathered it with frontman Dylan Baldi’s pop sensibilities. Following buzz singles ‘Stay Useless’ and ‘Fall In’ we saw Cloud Nothings nail the right-of-way Letterman Show and gain favourable festivals slots in all corners of the tour circuit. By bringing in producer John Congleton (The Dismemberment Plan, Explosions in the Sky) on their fourth LP we see a band who’ve played…

  • Master & Dog – Things You Should Know

    April 8, 2014 - By 

    Opening on a languidly strummed major chord in the vein of Sparklehorse and Low, pronounced gently like a first breath awakening from sleep, the lead track from Things You Should Know by Master & Dog is a brief but exquisitely restrained tale delicately marrying terse admissions of self-doubt with a pervasive ghost of hope. From the off, repose and self-contemplation feels directly conducive to the effect, the opening prologue-like tale very much setting the tone for the quartet’s latest EP. “I’m scared of what you’re capable of,” parts the alt-folk band’s vocalist and guitarist Walter Thee Goon, the release’s rather refreshingly unambiguous…

  • patten – Estoile Naiant

    April 7, 2014 - By 

    Once, a long time ago, The Thin Air had reason to find itself upon a small boat, sailing around Australia’s Whitsunday Islands. “Lucky you,” you might think. But it was not so, for – entirely lacking sea legs – immediately upon embarking on the voyage we succumbed to a vicious, day-long bout of seasickness. Entering the fourth or fifth hour of miserable nausea, lying helplessly spread-eagled on our bunk while friends frolicked happily up on deck, we did what any reasonable person would do to remedy the situation: began drinking heavily. Fast forward to that evening, and as we reached…

  • Teebs – E s t a r a

    April 4, 2014 - By 

    A visual artist as well as a musician, Teebs‘ (real name Mtendere Mandowa) work naturally invites comparison between formats (despite the philosophical problems that may entail). In both, Teebs’ noisy atmospheres drip off the page, and rough but delicate multicoloured textures extend in three dimensions. E s t a r a can be considered Teebs’ full length follow-up proper to 2010’s lauded Ardour.  It’s generally familiar territory for the Californian producer, whose use of repeated elements – certain synth sounds and drum beats are recognisably Teebs –  are mirrored by his habitual use of dripping, vibrant colours and flowers in his artwork. The furthest Teebs strays from his…

  • Animals as Leaders – The Joy of Motion

    March 31, 2014 - By 

    As of 2014, Tosin Abasi is a name that has been ringing in the ears of both musicians and listeners within the metal scene for nearly five years. In that time, the 8-string guitar virtuoso and his band Animals as Leaders have attained an almost universal acclaim from critics, who often cite the consummate guitar skills and complex structures in which they write and perform. Having said that, both of their previous albums have been sullied with a lack of consistency – for all the moments of excellence that they have, their past full-lengths could be described as unreliable and…

  • Future Islands – Singles

    March 25, 2014 - By 

    The hardest working band in electronic pop have moved to 4AD for their fourth album of delicately skewed and melodically-crushing heartbreak. Superficially, Singles carries on the Baltimore trio’s business of creating crafted, if slightly unsettling vignettes of loves lost, unrequited or simply illusory. The likes of ‘Tinman’ (from breakthrough second album In Evening Air) frantically pulsed with a combination of galloping bass and simmering synth washes and –most importantly – the astonishing voice of one Sam Herring. Herring’s half strangled, affected and utterly effecting throaty laments leant those songs a kind of raw, unnerving authenticity that made you believe he…

  • Rick Ross – Mastermind

    March 21, 2014 - By 

    Rick Ross’s sixth album Mastermind arrives to little ceremony. Throughout its promotion the usual rattle and hum of the internet hype machine has remained eerily silent for an artist considered to be among rap’s elite. Ross has always sold buckets of records and his fourth album Teflon Don – released in 2010 – granted him large scale critical acceptance that legitimised his ascendancy to hip-hop’s head table. But the past couple of years have stifled a career rise that once seemed so unstoppable. The Miami native’s recent misdeeds include some unfortunate lyrics that attracted accusations of condoning date rape, the termination of his…