electronica
Joe Muggs
A singer-songwriter of somewhat mystical bent, originally from a forested island in the US Pacific Northwest, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith really came into her own when she discovered vintage synthesizers. In particular, her masterpiece, 2016's EARS, saw her vocals merging into the rich flows of bubbling tones, melodies channelling folk traditions from various corners of the world, creating an unmistakably utopian sound. It felt neither futurist nor retro – rather, of a part with Craig Leon's Interplanetary Folk Music or Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton Music and Poetry of the Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Drew Daniel is never short of concepts, invention or mischief. As one half of Matmos, with his life partner M.C. Schmidt, he has made some 10 official albums and many more collaborative ones – all pushing the boundaries of electronic bricolage and sound processing in the pursuit of extremely complex ideas about American history, plastic surgery, philosophy, queer identity and all that kind of stuff. Occasionally, as Soft Pink Truth, he has made more overtly dance records, but even these are heavily loaded with twisted intellect, including as they do an album of anarcho-punk covers and one of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Even though nothing on Tape Archive Essence 1973–1978 was released at the time it was recorded, every track evokes material which was issued. Any fan of the German legends Cluster and Harmonia needs this album gathering extracts from tapes key member Hans-Joachim Roedelius recorded on his own during the period when both outfits were active.Cluster was initially Kluster, a trio which released a couple of experimental, free-form albums. After performing live at Göttingen University in May 1971, Conrad Schnitzler left and the remaining members Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius changed Read more ...
peter.quinn
We can all do with a dopamine hit right now, given the current lockdown, and those feel-good hormones kick in the instant you hear Yussef Dayes’ tight backbeat on the opening title track of What Kinda Music. A collaboration between drummer and producer Dayes and fellow south-east London-based producer and singer-songwriter Tom Misch – whose "Disco Yes" was one of Barack Obama’s favourite tracks of 2018 – the album is released today via the iconic Blue Note Records.The duo’s judicious mash-up of electronica, hip hop, jazz and prog – containing echoes of everything from Sweetback to another Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The latest Sadler’s Wells digital offering is 2019’s The Thread, a luminous collaboration between choreographer Russell Maliphant and Oscar-winning composer Vangelis (Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner) for the Athens-based production company Lavris. It’s a striking, contemporary take on Greek folk dance and classical mythology, with a series of abstract episodes forming the 75-minute work. Fragmented, and yet, as the title suggests, subtly woven together – like a collection of disparate beads strung onto one piece of string.Maliphant’s company of 18 young Greek dancers features six performers Read more ...
Joe Muggs
For underground music producers, there almost always comes a phase in life when they accept they're no longer young guns and embrace either massively complicated synthesisers, floaty new age music, or both. For Bristol-based Jake Martin aka Hodge it's the latter. This, his debut album after a decade releasing a couple of dozen EPs on connoisseurs' favourite labels and DJing around the world, has all the signifiers. Rainfall, tropical bird sounds, breathy synth tones in rising patterns, huge reverbs on tiny sounds... yes, even things that sound like panpipes: it's all there. From the hippie Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
For the duration of this C19 Lockdown, rather than the usual sprawling monthly epic, theartsdesk on Vinyl will be presented regularly in bite-sized editions, roving across the pile of releases we have already, since those incoming have been whittled down a trickle. Welcome, then, to a cross edition of plastic ranging from the beautiful to the bizarre. Dive in!Napalm Death Logic Ravaged by Brute Force/White Kross (Century Media)Great title. You don’t get titles like that with Dua Lipa! Five years after their last album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, the Midlands’ perennial politico noise-riff Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Let’s talk about “Blinding Lights”. What a sleek single, like an escapee from the acclaimed soundtrack to the film Drive, a polished riff on mid-Eighties synth-pop, ripe for 21st century dancefloors, one of the songs of the year so far, all topped off with the crystal falsetto of Abel Tesfaye, AKA The Weeknd. Is his new album, then, full of other treats that similarly step sideways from his trademark electro-warped hip Los Angeleno R&B, or is it business as (un)usual? The answer is that it’s a bit of both.The Canadian star has worked with everyone from Kanye West to Ed Sheeran to Kendrick Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The best place to start with Morrissey's new LP is the title track, which begins as a petty dig at the media: "I do not read newspapers/ they are troublemakers", the singer croons indignantly. But then, as the music builds and his anger mounts, Moz loosens up and his emotions flood out. The same dynamic is repeated throughout the entire album, with songs that alternate between mannered electro-pop and stirring, experimental rock. Opener "Jim Jim Falls", falls into the latter category, with pulsating, twitchy electronic noises that lead into sweeping melodies and dark lyrics about Read more ...
Barney Harsent
“I’m not your fucking friend,” intones Baxter Dury as recent single “I’m Not Your Dog” begins. As opening salvos go, it’s right up there with the best of them, full of sneering hostility and fiery intent. As an introduction, it’s a writer’s hook – pushing us away while drawing us in.If 2017’s Prince of Tears was an exercise in autobiographical confessional, The Night Chancers feels like Dury’s first, full-blown novel. The songs here boast a keen-eyed observation that creates a tableau into which his sharply drawn characters dive and thrive.That’s not to say it’s not grounded in personal Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Moby is perhaps better known these days for his two ultra-candid biographies, Porcelain and Then It Fell Apart, than he is for his massive album successes of two decades ago. His memoirs are compulsive, unique windows into the screwed up life of an intellectually inquisitive, punk rock-spirited, rave nerd who accidentally, briefly experienced superstardom. But he’s also fired out a series of dynamic, varied albums over the last decade, including music the match of anything in his back catalogue (“Almost Home”, featuring Damien Jurado, from 2013, is one of this century’s loveliest songs). Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Around the turn of the millennium, when Dan Snaith started releasing music – initially as Manitoba, then Caribou, and latterly also Daphni – he tended to get lumped in with the folktronica movement. In fact, the closest he came to actual folk was a heavy influence from the more delicate side of late 60s psychedelia. But, as with many of the other acts tagged with the f-word like his friend and ally Kieran “Four Tet” Hebden, it was really a clumsy signifier for people who were refusing to accept the artificial separation between “electronic music” and the rest which had become reified with the Read more ...