• Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire for No Witness

    March 18, 2014 - By 

    Ah, Angel Olsen, sad-eyed lady of St. Louis. Where most musicians write of their love life, Olsen seems to be dealing in the death of love. In this respect, Burn Your Fire For No Witness is less eleven songs than a series of romantic crime scenes, the outline of the bodies chalked out in bewitching melody; cruel words lying like spent bullet casings. Yet, as the emotionally bruising, wonderfully titled, first track ‘Unfucktheworld’ makes clear, our girl is still holding out hope, “I wanted nothing but for this to be the end / For this to never be a tight…

  • The Men – Tomorrow’s Hits

    March 12, 2014 - By 

    With a prodigious work ethic and a group of likeminded individuals, it’s often remarkable what can be achieved. For instance, while for some the process of creating a record from gestation to release can be a seemingly interminable operation, The Men have just produced their fourth LP of genuine quality in as many years. And with their latest release, the ironically titled Tomorrow’s Hits, the band are following a natural progression for arguably the first time. While 2011’s Leave Home – the band’s second release but the first that would be widely available – was seen as a critical success, its…

  • Cheatahs – Cheatahs

    March 11, 2014 - By 

    Nostalgia is a curious thing. If you are to believe reddit, Buzzfeed and Facebook posts about the nineties, you’d be under the impression that the decade was a some kind of cultural utopia; a place where real artists ruled the airwaves, television was dominated by classic shows and everything was made of sunshine, rainbows and gleeful apathy. But, as is always the case, all isn’t what it seems. For example, if you are to believe the teachings of Bill Hicks as laid out on Arizona Bay and Rant In E Minor, it’s hard to ascertain why anyone would even vaguely…

  • Beck – Morning Phase

    March 6, 2014 - By 

    Morning Phase represents the welcome return of Beck with this his twelfth LP, but also a welcome return of an old sound with this record being pitched as a companion piece to 2002’s critically acclaimed Sea Change. Morning Phase is bathed from the outset in a light that Sea Change was not, and how could it be? The previous was said to have been written in the week following the breakup of a nine year relationship for the prolific musician. Where Sea Change dwells quite beautifully in raw, lonely heartbreak, Morning Phase is a very new day. Now, twelve years…

  • Wild Beasts – Present Tense

    February 28, 2014 - By 

    When Kendal quartet Wild Beasts emerged in 2008 with debut album Limbo, Panto, it seemed that, at last, here was a band ready to rally to Neil Hannon’s battle-cry, “Elegance against ignorance. Difference against indifference. Wit against shit”. It’s an impression that subsequent albums have only served to strengthen. Fourth album Present Tense finds them venturing further out into the electronic wasteland first colonised on Smother. The sounds are scrubbed clean, in places glacially cool, a perfect contrast to emotions that bubble lava-hot beneath the surface. In most respects, it’s their most straightforward work – the vocal histrionics scaled back, sounds streamlined, ideas…

  • Young Fathers – Dead

    February 27, 2014 - By 

    Calling your album Dead doesn’t exactly promise a party, and to that end Young Fathers deliver few surprises. Take them at face value as hip-hop however and your expectations are much likelier to be challenged (unless perhaps your hip-hop collection is already coming down with acts boasting lineage from Liberia, Nigeria and Scotland). It might be difficult to imagine cold what such a combination might sound like, but once you’ve heard it, generally it adds up. The beats are the most obvious link to Africa – ironic though that may be since chief producer ‘G’ Hastings is the Scottish element…

  • Guided By Voices – Motivational Jumpsuit

    February 26, 2014 - By 

    Another year, another Guided By Voices record. You should know the score by now: 20 tracks, few of which break the two minute mark, filled with song fragments, little moments of beauty, and the occasional full-fledged composition. In this regard, the new GBV album is little different from its predecessors, surfing on the comfortable wave they’ve been on since they arrived re-invigorated from the wilderness with the release of Let’s Go Eat The Factory in January 2012. None of which is to say that it’s in any way a bad record. On the contrary, it’s an album that rarely has…

  • VA – Kompakt Pop Ambient 2014

    February 20, 2014 - By 

    Kompakt, surely Germany’s most pragmatic electronic label, have it pretty damn good. Not only do they operate from one of the most historically rich techno hubs in Europe, but as an independent and well-respected label they have become part of that same cultural relevance. The label has been lovingly grown from its record shop roots in the early 90’s and their propensity for sparse, subtly textured electronica has dominated their output up to the present day. Their latest compilation is the fourteenth installment of their Pop Ambient series and from the beginning seems to efficiently comply with the label’s sonic modus…

  • Gardens & Villa – Dunes

    February 19, 2014 - By 

    When surrounded by the cold on all sides, it’s important to find appropriate mood music; something to either blast away the cold with promises of Summer just on the horizon or to revel in the abject misery and desolation of the whole season. With Dunes, recorded in the near arctic US Midwest, California-based Gardens and Villa are trying to explore the season. Whether or not they’re successful is a very different story. Dunes operates on two primary settings: new wave/post punk- inflected electro boogies and slower tempo melancholic nuggets of ethereal emotion. Throughout the whole record the influences are apparent.…

  • Bombay Bicycle Club – So Long, See You Tomorrow

    February 14, 2014 - By 

    Bombay Bicycle Club are an admirably prolific outfit, with So Long, See You Tomorrow completing  the band’s meteoric journey up the British charts; their fourth album since 2009 going straight in at number one. The album is certainly their most experimental to date and features everything from a very Bollywood-style intro on ‘Feel’ to synth and electro tracks scattered throughout the album. If Bombay fans of old were expecting an album rooted in more of an acoustic feel they will be very disappointed or will have to adapt quickly, but, then again, adapting to a change in tack from this…