• Mr. Oizo – The Church

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    Mr. Oizo, the alias of French electro-extraordinaire and director Quentin Dupieux, has come a long way from providing the soundtrack for small-time, petty criminal puppet Flat Eric and his Levi jeans thieving shenanigans. Well known to those who came of age in the late nineties and early millennium, the track ‘Flat Beat’ and its fluffy, yellow mascot, represented a crossover of cultural motifs and fused a relationship between image and sound that is still instantly recognisable over a decade later. More importantly, with ‘Flat Beat,’ Dupieux created a track that was flat-out immense; one that was able to transcend the…

  • Kelis – Food

    May 1, 2014 - By 

    Kelis Rogers has always been somewhat of an enigmatic figurehead for the fringes of popular music. A sonic siren, her brand of off-centre RnB has historically enjoyed success with club-goers, channel hoppers and with those who just enjoy a bloody good hook and the occasional raucous holler or two. ‘I Hate You So Much Right Now,’ for instance, her 1999 vocal assault on a cheating spouse, provided Rogers with an opportunity to change the way RnB was to be perceived – it could be powerful, visceral even, but retain the soulful and jazz-influenced backdrop that many of Rogers’ contemporaries exploited…

  • Lee Bannon – Alternate/Endings

    January 16, 2014 - By 

    Remember that excited, lose-yourself-in-something-primal feeling you had when music shook you so hard that you laughed but also cried at the same time? Well, let that explosive catharsis elude you no more, for 2014 has kicked off with Lee Bannon’s debut LP, a record fastened upon a foundation of shock, awe and a solid history of open-minded, experimental production. Having secured his reputation and cut his teeth producing hip hop that’s more avant-garde than balls-to-the-wall, Bannon continues to explore the junglist sensibilities he began to display in 2013 with his latest LP, Alternate/Endings. Bearing in mind that hip hop and…

  • Cuttooth – Cuttooth LP

    July 26, 2013 - By 

    Considering the gruesome state of current urban music trends, evocative and engaging Hip Hop can be pretty tough to come by these days, and with the likes of J Dilla and Flying Lotus having set the standard for dreamy, lush and stripped back Hip Hop compositions (Strip Hop?) Cuttooth – aka Nick Cooke – manages to hold his own in this milieu with his second, self-titled LP.  It doesn’t feel like there is a direct regurgitating of the late Dilla or of the very much still rocking FlyLo, but, there is more than just a tip of the hat to…