• Wild Beasts – Present Tense

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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…

  • I Break Horses – Chiaroscuro

    Chiaroscuro, an Italian juxtaposition of the words light and dark, has historically been a dramatic and influential style of presentation, particularly in the classical art world; it is also the theme upon which I Break Horses’ second album is based. Having seen success with their first release Hearts which netted them touring slots with Sigur Rós and M83, the excitement had been building in the minds of many prior to this release – they were a new band that many critics couldn’t help but fall for. The new record is a series of anxious, techno-infused pieces, with a strong bent…

  • Actress – Ghettoville

    Actress, AKA Darren Cunningham has prowled the dark world of experimental, minimalist electronica for nearly a decade now. The title of this his fourth album harks back to Hazyville, his debut full length, and, if the finality hinted at in the album blurb is to be heeded, the pair seem likely to bookend the Actress story. Accordingly Cunningham has decided to create his masterpiece. Adopting varied approaches, Actress hunts the murky territory of a glitchy, avant garde noise and presents the results in phases. These phases become most obvious over five (not six) sides of vinyl LP (everything needs to…

  • Planningtorock – All Love’s Legal

    All Love’s Legal is the latest release from the Berlin-based Planningtorock, her first since 2011’s W. Owing as much to the likes of Burial and Brian Eno as her label mates from DFA, All Love’s Legal is a musically fascinating album. It’s a great example of late night music; the party has died down, but you don’t want to night to end just yet. Voices are heavily distorted and unearthly, the beats are distant and everything just seems to be filtered through the haze of intense lights, strong booze and cheap drugs. We are giddily lost within the post-club confusion.…

  • September Girls – Cursing The Sea

    For devotees and avid consumers of feedback-drenched guitar pop that once formed the backbone of the “Paisley Underground” or C86 scenes, it may seem like a long, cold Ice Age has been in situ.  September Girls could be those first green shoots emerging through the rocky landscape or the first of the small, furry animals to roll out of hibernation. This ain’t punk, and it sure isn’t nihilism. The songs on Cursing the Sea surf the wave of the Sixties and Eighties guitar bands and the influence of the sonic genius of the Beach Boys and Phil Spector.  For sure,…