electropop
Barney Harsent
After waiting a quarter of a century for Blancmange’s last album, 2011’s Blanc Burn, this new offering, effectively a Neil Arthur solo project, almost feels like a rush release. There’s a much changed visual aesthetic – gone is the stylised, Fifties cover kitsch, replaced by something much more stark and impenetrable. Now, I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but what about CDs?This new collection is certainly darker, but, before we address that, let’s get the negative stuff out of the way. Don’t worry, it really won’t take long. So… “Useless” sounds like the Wedding Present trying Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Had it not been for the fact that Charli “XCX” Aitchison had struggled to find a hit of her own until last summer’s Fault in Our Stars-soundtracking “Boom Clap”, I’d be convinced that she had tapped into some secret formula for producing perfect pop hits. “I Love It”, the rabble-rousing breakup anthem she wrote for Swedish electropop duo Icona Pop and her attention-grabbing hook on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” share a distinguishable swagger, but had little impact on the negligible success of her 2013 major label debut True Romance. In the fickle world of pop music, that should have been enough to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Junk CultureOMD’s fifth album, Junk Culture, followed 1983’s Dazzle Ships into the shops. Where that was experimental, fragmented, wilful, used found sounds and, in places, eschewed melody and traditional song form, 1984’s glossy release was recorded at Montserrat’s swish Air Studios, the facility founded by George Martin which was favoured by Dire Straits, Elton John and Paul McCartney. Dazzle Ships was influenced by Stockhausen. Junk Culture featured the mambo-esque calypso “All Wrapped Up”, a weedy echo of early Eighties chart funsters Modern Romance.Of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Whether intentional or not, the third album by French chart-topping duo The dø is effectively a renewal of “Sweet Dreams”-era Eurythmics. The synth bubble-‘n’-pulse and vocal lines nodding towards the choral and gospel inescapably evoke what Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart fashioned in the mid-Eighties. Shake Shook Shaken’s third track “Miracles (Back in Time)” suggests so much of Eurythmics’ “Here Comes the Rain Again” that it’s possible Dan Levy and the Finland-born but France-dwelling Olivia Merilahti are actually paying tribute to Eurythmics.Shake Shook Shaken – with its bizarre sleeve Read more ...
Matthew Wright
At least the concept is more catchy than the title, which won’t be tripping off DJing lips. A mixtape intended to let the band flex its (well-concealed?) experimental muscles, this features collaborations with artists from Haim to Angel Haze and MNEK. It promises intriguing new blends of musical colour and texture, but too many songs are characterised by windy, wailing, reverb-heavy synth and vocals. “Axe to Grind”, featuring Tyde, is disappointingly blunt-edged, with an attractive palette of voices but no shape. “Torn Apart” is another ragbag of wailing synths and vocals. “Fall Into Read more ...
caspar.gomez
Once up on a time, a long time ago, the pop music of France was a joke to the outside world. Serge Gainsbourg and certain Parisian chanson auteurs received occasional plaudits but, for the most part, coverage consisted of throwaway sniggering at Johnny Halliday. No longer. From Daft Punk to David Guetta, from Air to Justice, the French are now colossi of dance-pop which, let’s face it, in 2014 is all pop. One day, when the dust settles and leather elbow-padded rave historians peek into how this change came about, three names will recur: Daft Punk, of course, but also techno visionary Laurent Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The voice is unmistakably Icelandic. Fluting and dancing around the notes, the words it carries are broken into segments which don’t respect syllables. Although singing in English, Hildur Kristín Stefánsdóttir hasn’t sacrificed her Icelandic intonation.The music itself is also unmistakably Icelandic. As with fellow Icelanders múm, electronica has been assimilated bringing a glitchiness which knocks the lush, ebbing and flowing arrangements off balance. Yet the totality is folky and warmly intimate.Innra, the third album from Rökkurró, is a lovely thing – a musical postcard from a world where Read more ...
fisun.guner
Does Kylie exist without spectacle? Take away the 6ft headgear, the sparkly hotpants, the spangly corsets, the team of super-fit dancers dressed like futuristic liquorice allsorts, and what’s left? If you find whatever it is, please let me know. But if it’s spectacle you’re into – and who doesn’t enjoy a bit of sparkle and shimmer now and again? – there’s fun to be had at a Kylie gig, even as you’re aware that all you’re admiring is the pristine production and the manufactured aura of the Kylie brand. "Wooo", the audience go at a spectacular but brief light show between two Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Tulegur Gangzi describes his music as “Mongolian grunge” and “nomad rock.” Thrashing at an acoustic guitar, the Inner-Mongolian troubadour is singing in the khomei style, the throat-singing which sounds part-gargle, drone and chant – or all three at once. His approach to the guitar is just as remarkable. With his left hand sliding up and down the neck, the open tunings he employs set up a sibilant plangence nodding to the trancey folk-rock of Stormcock Roy Harper. The slashing, descending guitar which kicks in near the close of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” appears to also be in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Tonight, in the Faroe Islands, we’re going to find the greatest dancer.” It’s not an exhortation which often rings out. It could even be a first time The Faroes have been invited to demonstrate their disco prowess. Sister Sledge are on stage and about to launch into their 1979 Chic-produced world-wide smash “He’s the Greatest Dancer”.This, though, is 2014 and the Sledge sisters are playing G! Festival, the Faroes’ annual celebration of their own culture and popular music. The other Nordic countries are here too – bands from Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are playing.But G! is about the Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti are a living lesson in the rejuvenating power of remaining experimental in art. Their music holds its own alongside the young guns of electronica, who indeed frequently idolise them, and in person they frequently seem as excited about possibilities and open to new ideas as artists just starting out.The set they played at Sónar festival in Barcelona last weekend was based on the Chris & Cosey songs they wrote throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but deliberately done in the more abstracted electronic style they took on as Carter Tutti from 2000 onwards – Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Klaxons are a great band. They’re also a brutal example of how a great band can make the wrong decisions and scupper themselves. Their Mercury-winning debut album Myths of the Near Future not only captures a moment when dance, rock and pop collided to offer colourful reinvigoration for all parties, it’s also a stand-alone classic. After it they went off the rails and made a drug-addled psychedelic experiment. That is what great bands do, right? Instead of realising this, and releasing the results to intrigued bemusement – the key word being “intrigued” – they dumped it and, instead, recorded Read more ...