electronica
Album: Moby - Always Centered at NightFriday, 14 June 2024US electronic perennial Moby has had a good run. He was a rave culture phenomenon from 1991 onwards. He blew that with a vegan punk album. He released Play at the decade’s end and sold millions. He then had decadent superstar years, a run of huge,... Read more... |
Album: Charli XCX - BratFriday, 07 June 2024Charli XCX has been making scrambled eggs of pop for a decade. She’s written songs for/with artists including, but far from limited to, Lady Gaga, Iggy Azalea, Giorgio Moroder, Selina Gomez, BTS, David Guetta, Ty Dolla $ign, Blondie, Gwen Stefani,... Read more... |
Album: Bat For Lashes - The Dream of DelphiWednesday, 29 May 2024Natasha Khan’s musical career has always explored the artier end of pop. Her latest album, her sixth and first in five years, is more akin to the soundtrack work she did with Swiss composer Dominik Scherrer on BBC spook-thriller Requiem in 2018 than... Read more... |
Album: EYE - Dark LightWednesday, 01 May 2024Skirting along the peripheries of doom metal, unbeknownst to almost everyone, there existed a band called Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard. Hailing from Wrexham, Wales, they created four albums that stand alone in their originality, combining massively... Read more... |
Album: Justice - HyperdramaSaturday, 27 April 2024Justice are a couple of super-suave rock star analogues. Leathers and aviators, yes, but with a very Parisian insouciance. Their music is the same. It has a rocker-friendly je-ne-sais-quoi, but air-brushed with the glitzy sci-fi futurism one might... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 83: Deep Purple, Annie Anxiety, Ghetts, WHAM!, Kaiser Chiefs, Butthole Surfers and moreTuesday, 16 April 2024VINYL OF THE MONTHLondon Afrobeat Collective Esengo (Canopy)The weather has not been kind to the UK lately, pelting it daily with endless drizzle and gloom. So wrap your ears around this, a mini-album that will infuse any room with blazing sunshine... Read more... |
Album: Kim Gordon - The CollectiveThursday, 14 March 2024Some icons sit back and bask. Kim Gordon does not. She has occasionally intimated that her New York cool and relentless work rate may be down to a smidgeon of imposter syndrome, even after all her years on the frontline. Whatever the truth of it,... Read more... |
Album: The Dandy Warhols - RockmakerWednesday, 13 March 2024Just as it’s not the best idea to judge a book by its cover, it’s also not advisable to judge an album by its insipid title. Led Zeppelin IV and Leonard Cohen’s Ten New Songs being obvious cases in point.To the list of uninspired album titles which... Read more... |
Album: Bolis Pupul - Letter to YuThursday, 07 March 2024This album starts on an extremely literal note. The whole record is themed around Belgian born-and-raised Bolis Pupul’s explorations of the Chinese side of his heritage after his mother’s death in 2008, and his regrets at not having done so when she... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 82: Human League, Hawkwind, Roberta Flack, Kid Acne, Photek, Rudimentary Peni and moreMonday, 04 March 2024VINYL OF THE MONTHMito y Comadre Guajirando (ZZK)Mito y Comadre are Guillermo Lares and Shana Comadre, a Bogota-based pair of Venezuelans whose debut album is produced by Christian Castagno (a man who’s more likely to be found helming outings by... Read more... |
Album: Squarepusher - DostrotimeSaturday, 02 March 2024Tom “Squarepusher” Jenkinson has covered a lot of ground over three decades, from dank cellar ambience to refined baroque composition, and from chirpy funk to monstrous noise. But his default mode is instantly recognisable: 170+ beats per minute... Read more... |
Album: Laetitia Sadier - Rooting for LoveWednesday, 21 February 2024It must be kind of unreal living in the Stereolab universe.A band of geeky introverts, beloved of the type of hairclip-and-satchel indie ultras a friend of mine used to call “the Scooby Gang” for their tendency to resemble Shaggy and Velma, over the... Read more... |