Category: Album of the Month

Posted in Album of the Month

DECEMBER: Young Fathers: Dead

Posted on by misterstory

young-fathers-theonepointeight

Can we forget about the Mercury? Probably not but I fear this may descend into a critique of the Mercury decision rather than critique of a piece of music. Anyway, let’s have a roll and see how this works out?

For me, this is an album of 11x 3 min pop tracks (no song under 2 min 50, none over 3 min 51). I am sure we will debate the word ‘pop’ as I think at least one of us will struggle with that definition? I would argue that you can’t have as many hooks in one album of 3 min tracks and it not be a ‘pop’ album.  It doesn’t matter  that the group choose to deliberately sabotage their own ‘pop’ credentials in dark, dystopian, discordant, choral chants, nose-diving bass lines and berating beats.

This isn’t easy listening. Having said that I found it effortless to get into (not bragging I just think this ticks loads of my boxes). But I understand that most people find the opposite to be true. I’ve recently gone back (album released in Jan 2014) and read loads of reviews of this album and most say that it is difficult to penetrate but massively rewarding when you do. I always bang on about ‘when’ I can listen to music and this is a distracting listen that really requires you to engage in its finer points. Background music this is not. Tunes to play while working? Nope. Driving, public transport etc, Yep. I listen to it most when training.

Much has been made about the multi-cultural make up of the band which all feels a little ‘Mercury’ to me until you start listening to the lyrics and picking through the subject matter.  ‘Ak47 take my brethren straight to heaven’ is pure hip hop cliche in an LA accent but it appears more impactful and evocative in an African (Young Fathers = Liberian, Nigerian. Scottish) accent and preceded by the imagery conjured up in the opening verses of ‘No Way’, the albums opening track. If you like this album then I would suggest spending some time with the lyrics of these tracks.

http://genius.com/artists/Young-fathers

I think this album avoids the ‘worthiness’ which it could have created with its multi-ethnic (Scottish included) influences and a lyrical topics. It feels like all of the constituent parts (ethnic background: check / socially conscious lyrics: check / eclectic influences: check) make for a cliche-ridden horror show but at each opportunity to fall into that hipster trap is swerves either lyrically or sonically and avoids the cliche. As if sat in the studio they felt it a track was getting a bit too nice so they chucked in a massive tribal rhythm and discordant drone to scare off the ‘wrong crowd’.

Who does this sound like? Anti-Pop Consortium, TV on the Radio, Shabazz Palaces, New Flesh, Saul Williams … New Fathers?As mentioned before this ticks loads of my boxes and I love all of the artists listed above (Shabazz excluded – sorry David may be I need to try that one again?).

So, similar to FKA Twigs, at the point of winning the Mercury, they’d only sold 3,000 units. Its now at least 3,004. But does this matter? Sales does not correlate to quality. Just look at the Cinema Box Office.

Brothers, your thoughts?

Posted in Album of the Month

November Album: Caribou – Our Love

Posted on by nolankane706

After last month’s SBTRKT album which brought very mixed reviews I have chosen to stick with a dance driven album and select Caribou’s ‘Our Love’.

This for me has been the most anticipated album release for 2014. I was a huge fan of his ‘Swim’ album and loved his in-between project under the alias of Daphni. The first single off the album ‘Can’t Do Without You’ was my summer anthem, soon followed by the second single ‘Our Love’.

This album has so many layers to it but as I want to hear what the rest of you think so I’m just going to hit on the main two for me:

1 – The music!! Structure wise, composition, production…. All I can say is OOOOFFFFFF! It’s all I hoped for and more. I have read a few articles saying that this album is more of a Daphni album than a Caribou album but I disagree. The Daphni releases are much more basic compositions than this album. Sure there must be massive influences from playing clubs and festivals for the last three years, but this isn’t a Daphni album. On swim I felt that he left you wanting more from a few of the songs and he has reached that point on this album. Some of the songs build and build which I love. Some bring you fully into their world. Once again, OOOOFFFFFF!

2 – The Lyrics. I listened to this album for about two weeks before even paying attention to the lyrics. Musically it is that strong. When I took the step to get into the lyrics this album then started coming across in a different way. For me this album is about love and relationships (in a very basic way). Compared to ‘Swim’ Caribou seems to have opened up much more which has aided his album structure for me. On ‘Swim’ I thought he gave us a taste and left it at that.

There is much more I could get into but I want to hear your thoughts on this.

Album of the year, possibly? I reckon it’ll be in my top three for sure.

Posted in Album of the Month

OCTOBER: Wonder Where We Land by SBTRKT

Posted on by David Allison

Funny how an artist can make something that doesn’t grab you, and then make something else that isn’t so different – and it blows you away.

I *liked* the first album – or rather, I *loved* the singles and another track or two, and I thought the rest of it was a little undercooked. I expected this album to be a re-run of that experience – I *love* the Ezra Koenig tune and the Sampha single, and on first listen, I had a feeling of deja vu. Nice, inventive, soulful, but downbeat and – yup, maybe a little undercooked.

Wow, was I wrong? Every single time I played the album, it opened up a little more. Until I couldn’t stop playing it, and the songs started ringing round my brain even when I wasn’t listening to them.

This record is such a huge step forward from his debut. He was always clearly insanely talented, but he’s honed that talent very quickly, and this genuinely feels like an artist firing on all cylinders. And like all musicians of any note, he seems to create a sound that makes you wonder where the fuck it even came from.

What I like about it is that he doesn’t feel like a guy immersed in some hipster culture or trying to create something to do with fashion. It is *soul* music in the broadest sense. I knew nothing about the guy until I read this interview:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/02/sbtrkt-wonder-where-we-land-interview

– and it really informed my listening of this album. He does sound like an outsider, someone who’s willing to try anything out and see where it leads. A song like Look Away, featuring the Chairlift singer, could easily come across as repetitive or moribund – instead it feels insistent and melancholy. Higher, the Raury track, feels a bit like a slap in the face the first few times you hear it, coming as it does quite early in the tracklist. But again, it became something quite different after a few listens. He sure as hell knows how to get the best of Jessie Ware, an artist I *really* like but who can easily drift a little into bland territory without the right material. Best of all is the album’s closer, Voices in My Head, a terrifyingly real drug psychosis song delivered with paranoid genius by ASAP Ferg.  Again, you struggle to imagine how a collaboration like that came about. And then I read this:

http://rock.genius.com/Sbtrkt-voices-in-my-head-lyrics

And this kind of sums up what I love about this. He’s a collaborator – a proper one, who can bring out the best in everyone he works with – but one who at the same time has a complete musical vision.

This, Brothers, is undoubtedly one of my albums of the year. I look forward to your thoughts.

Posted in Album of the Month

FKA Twigs – LP1

Posted on by GuyHornsby

The Hype machine is well and truly in motion with FKA twigs. She’s got the Mercury nomination and she’s already proven to be a step forward from the usual  ‘next big thing labelled artist. For starters, she’s done her dues, working as a dancer for the likes of Kyliuwith some good and bad experiences lending themselves to shaping the independent character she is. She’s learnt Ableton to produce the bulk of her own work, she’s self-released her first EP via Bandcamp, and had creative control over both her music and videos from the start. Perhaps she’s just a bit older (26) than some of her contemporaries and that’s given her a more realistic worldview, but it’s refreshing to see someone so determined to ensure that what gets out there to represent her as an artist, but in a fiercely independent way, rather than anything as contrived as Gaga.

But what about the music? I’ll add a disclaimer here: I come to this album with curiosity, but also the understanding that this music isn’t likely to light my fire. I’m no pigeonholer, and this is far from the slick R’n’B that lazy jounalists will paint it as. It’s much more than that, with loose structures, odd sounds, clicks and off-beat persusion. Volcas are double-tracked falsetto and deep whispers, drenched in reverb. And then there’s the lyrics. Overtly sexual, and not in a trite way that’s the standard for rap and hip-hop or some more mainstream R’n’B, but really unashamedly gritty and open. That’s caused a lot of buzz, and that’ before you get to the videos. You only have to have a look at her videos, especially Two Weeks, to see that she’s something different.

But is it for me? I don’t know. I’ve listened to the album four times already, and I just don’t connect with it at the moment. It’s an odd mix of sexual lyrics, but woven into a structure that seems cold and detatched. It’s very modern, and from the way the music sounds and is produced, I take my hat off to her for almost pushing against the standard template, even to a point where it will lose her fans or sales, but then that’s what great artists do. She’s some way off that but you have to applaud it.

I’d compare it to Grimes in many ways, an album that many loved but really grated when I first encountered it. I think a lot of the problems I’d had with that album were more around interviews I’d read with Grimes and fond her to be pretentious and irritating. For FKA Twigs, I actually like everything I’ve read from her and about her, but I’m struggling to penetrate it at the moment. Maybe, like Grimes, I’ll listen to it after a break and it’ll gel.

Get stuck in and let me know your thoughts.

Posted in Album of the Month

August Album: ‘Mala’ by Devendra Banhart

Posted on by misterstory

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Happy summer Brothers,

As I have stated before I have been struggling a little for inspiration recently for our albums. Todd Terje was a great album but it was new to me and I think that these albums should be something that we love and share. I had a number of new, well reviewed albums that I was considering but am glad that you directed me to something that I do actually love.

I have a long history with Mr. Banhart, Venezuelan-born, California singer-songwriter;

(For Guys sake) – a number of years ago I seperated from my then wife, found a little one bedroom flat that I paid for on top of my mortgage and horrible legal bills. I had no money, no TV but the most intimate time of my life with music. I had not before or since listened to so much music and in doing so discovered loads of artists that I still love now. Yes, this period has been romanticised in memory and therefore any music I loved then was loved through musical-rose tinted glasses … but I count Devendra as an artist that I really got to know during this time. Back then, he looked like an annoying hippie-cliche but I had no knowledge of this due to no TV no personal computer (10 years ago I think). He wrote mainly solo acoustic songs about odd things. 2 minute tracks that amused as much as they offered musically. 2 albums ‘Nino Rojo’ and ‘Rejoicing in the Hands’ mark this period and his prolific output.

It all went a bit down-hill into odd pastiche and silliness.

Much of this love of pastiche and silliness is on full display throughout Mala. However, the songs are strong and pull the listener through. For me the questions that you will need to answer before committing to liking this (or not) is (1) does it overcome a tag of ‘novelty’ (2) do you care enough about how he got to this album without the history with him that I have. We forgive artists we love for many errors and in doing so loose a frame of reference, the objectivity to truly critique.

I was going to have this as album of the month ages ago but held back because of the above but recently have listened to this album loads. Partly as I’ve driven 1000s of miles and partly due the weather. This is a great summer album.

It is, without doubt all over the shop, there is soft-shoe-shuffle, 50’s crooner, German-House pastiche all interlaced with his historically standard acoustic solo fare. For me what ties this together is Devendra’s charisma, humour and the fact that the songs are strong, regardless of their ‘genre’ and never out-stay their welcome.

Enjoy. Listen without prejudice. Play it a few times and it will dig in. I find it great driving music or general pottering music.

Posted in Album of the Month

July Album of the Month: Alice Russell – To Dust

Posted on by nolankane706

Alice Russell has been on my radar for a while now. About 10 years if memory serves me right. With that I think she has shown potential and blown me away at times and others has been let me down musically.

Last summer I picked up her latest offering not sure what to expect and was pleasently surprised. Like many albums that we seem to all pick, this needs some time, and a little sunshine as well. Perhaps that’s why I have held off a year to share it with you. It works better in the summer for me.

To me this is an album that has been done by someone that has some soul and knows what she wants out of each track on this album. I’m finding this harder and harder to find this days out of a full album and I think she holds it well.

I like this album in the car, when I’m working, when I’m cooking, or just puttering. It seems to be in my life a fair bit once again now the sun has returned. Hopefully it may find a place in yours as well.

Posted in Album of the Month

JUNE: Singles by Future Islands

Posted on by David Allison

First impressions don’t always count, I guess.

I knew nothing of this band – who have actually been around for a while, this being their 3rd album – until that Lettermen performance went a bit viral. And like Brother Guy, I was kind of appalled by Samuel T. Herring (what a name!)’s vocals, which I just couldn’t get over. He was certainly soulful, but the hystrionics made it feel kind of ridiculous.

And then, bit by bit, I’d keep hearing from various friends about how much they loved the album. So, like you, I came to this cold and expected little. And to start with, I wasn’t all that sure. His voice is less Marmite in the mix of this rather smart and crisp 80-influenced production. But neither did it grab me that much. Not on the first or second listen. But by the third or fourth, I was doing that thing you do when you know it’s got you – you go straight back to the beginning and play it again.

Twin Shadow is a looming comparison it’s impossible not to make. Like TS, the band take an 80s sound that could come across and self-conscious and make something organic of it. That’s down to the sound being well-crafted and to some pretty solid songwriting hooks. It’s an odd package but it works surprisingly well.

Is it my album of the year? No. (current candidates: St Vincent, East India Youth, Beck, Todd Terje) Will I be playing it in a year’s time? I’m not sure, but it’s possible. I still play the first Twin Shadow album regularly (the 2nd one, not though – it didn’t have any staying power). I hear they’re also a blow-away act live, so that might be fun to do too.

File under: surprisingly palatable and tasty.

Posted in Album of the Month

April Album Of The Month: Space Dimension Controller – Welcome To Mikrosector-50

Posted on by GuyHornsby

The first time I came across Space Dimension Controller was at ADE in 2012, and I honestly knew his stuff only by name. I knew he was from Ireland, so it’s fair to say that I was a bit thrown by what was coming out of the speakers: the sound of a throaty deep black voice over a Prince-like groove. I had to stand there for a few minutes to see what was going on, but it became clear he was doing a live effected vocal, and it kind of blew me away.

Come through to 2014, and I’ve finally got the album after months of being recommended it, and what an odd, strange, brilliant, crazy beast it is. A concept (ugh) album of sorts, with the ‘Space Dimension Controller’ a futuristic time traveller arriving back on his home planet to odd goings on. It sounds preposterous and daft, but then you realise the guy is in his early 20s, and he’s making music that sounds like a melting pot of Prince, Rick James, Mike Oldfield, Afrika Bambaata, Josh Wink and you start to realise the guy has chops.

On top of that, there’s something quite endearing about an album that reminds me of some of the semi-B-movie films of my youth (think The Running Man and Total Recall). It’s a bizarre package for a 20-something Irishman to make, but I’ve not heard anything like it in the last ten years, and the more I listen, the more it grows on me.

So, here’s April’s album of the month. Listen, enjoy (I hope) and comment away….