• Brian Eno – Reflection

    January 24, 2017 - By 

    Brian Eno invented ambient. Did he? Maybe. Who knows? He’s done a lot over the years – insert chronology here, from Roxy Music to Music For Airports, producing Laraaji, teaming up with Bowie and then U2, film soundtracks, Windows 95, and finally releasing albums for Warp. The latter is why we’re talking about him here, as he kicked off 2017 with a beautiful piece of work called Reflection, which was released on January 1. It’s the latest in a series of works in a bracket he calls “thinking music”; works that are “generative”. He takes a series of sounds, sets…

  • Tycho – Epoch

    January 23, 2017 - By 

    Scott Hansen’s take on electronica is one rooted as much in aesthetics as it is sound. A musician with a strong sense of visual communication, Hansen’s compositions have typically found a balance not unlike the space on an artist’s pad – colourful, contextually informative, and direct in all the right places, while sparse and minimalistic in others. It’s this balance that has resulted in a canon undetermined by fad or the changing tastes of an audience; Hansen’s work is signature and conforms to little else than a singular vision. This thread of idiosyncrasy can be traced back to 2011’s Dive;…

  • Foxygen – Hang

    January 23, 2017 - By 

    “And it all but seems my lifetime dreams have ended.” Not the most encouraging sentiment to begin a song with, but at least it’s honest. That is how ‘On Lankershim’, the current single by  Californian avant-garde duo Foxygen, commences. It strikes a searing contrast to a lyric from ‘Shuggie’ from their 2013 album, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic which proclaims, “If you believe in yourself you can free your soul”. Foxygen formed twelve years ago when high school pals Jonathan Rado and Sam France began experimenting with psychedelic arrangements. In more recent times, there have…

  • Chavez – Cockfighters

    January 19, 2017 - By 

    It’s been twenty years since New York’s Chavez have graced our ears with their angular, discordant interpretation of punk. Having never officially split, the promise of new material was alway on the cards, but the members’ other commitments with likes Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Zwan, Run The Jewels and Mike Judge made it substantially less tangible. But like their twisted, asymmetrical music would suggest, Chavez will always find a way to catch you off guard. That’s what their latest EP, Cockfighters, is, a trifle of a release designed to destroy any preemptive obituaries and to announce that they are alive and well…

  • The Flaming Lips – Oczy Mlody

    January 18, 2017 - By 

    In a typically out-there press release for Oczy Mlody, Wayne Coyne evokes “A future where OczyMlody is the current cool powerful party drug of choice and sleeping is the ultimate cure for everything” – a scenario that takes place inside a hedonistic gated community where people opt out of reality into a fantasy world. Coyne’s conceptualisation of the fourteenth Flaming Lips album proper is incredibly close to that of The Who’s aborted Lifehouse project (that ultimately became the 1971 Who’s Next album), set in a futuristic world where society is hooked up to The Grid via “experience suits” and programmed…

  • Joan of Arc – He’s Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands

    January 16, 2017 - By 

    On their latest LP, He’s Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands, Joan of Arc have rather kindly telegraphed the initial reactions of those unfamiliar with the group in the opening lyrics: “What the fuuuuuuuuuuck?”. That line is immediately followed by sampled, compressed drums smashing in completely out of left field while random electronic bleeps float around the mix and vocals offer up curious anatomy lessons. This is just the first thirty seconds. Let’s rollback a tad and give some extra context. When emo legends Cap’n Jazz split, brothers Tim and Mike Kinsella formed Joan of…

  • Exploding Eyes – Exploding Eyes

    January 16, 2017 - By 

    With an eye cast to longer days, warmer weather, and the promise of a new year, the self-titled debut LP from Dublin’s gritty blues- rock trio Exploding Eyes greets you with a welcoming invitation to something a little less serious and a lot more fun. The album is scattered with callbacks to some of the more classic and legendary rock outfits from the golden age of blues pop culture, such as Cream, Janis Joplin, and even some Lynyrd Skynyrd in some of their softer tracks. Opening up the album in stellar form is the single ‘We Need Love’ – a track…

  • Half Japanese – Hear The Lions Roar

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    You know when you’re at a party, enjoying a group conversation and a member of your gaggle makes a private joke, the meaning behind you’re not privy to? It creates this terribly awkward and uncomfortable feeling as you’re left wondering what is so funny. From context and reaction, you can infer that something enjoyable, or at the very least interesting has occurred, but you’re completely at a loss as to what that is or what it even could be. Half Japanese is the musical equivalent of that sensation. Within their repertoire, you can hear the stylistic hints from the likes…

  • The XX – I See You

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    The XX are a band that harness negative space within music to create an atmosphere so chillingly retrospective that in most cases it need only be listened to underneath moonlight. The trio slid anxiously into the industry with their debut, XX, an album that, unbeknownst to them, would become an international success. The suave blend of spacious indie-electronic beats provided by Jamie (xx) Smith and the minimal vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim proved them to be the perfect vessel for conveying the vernacular of heartbreak and loss. Following this was 2012’s Coexist, an even more stripped back, sparsely…

  • David Bowie – No Plan

    January 11, 2017 - By 

    She held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said Final Sentence of Franz Kafka’s The Castle History is littered with the infinite possibilities teased at within the unfinished work of great artists who died before their time. Think of Elliott Smith’s From A Basement On A Hill, David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King or George Sluizer’s Dark Blood; all released in an awkwardly assembled form, stitched together from whatever fragments the artist had left behind. While they vary wildly…