Category Archives: Track Of The Week

Weekly selection of other artists music

TOTW:FKA Twigs_Pendulum

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I have been re-listening to the first album by FKA twigs again for several weeks after seeing her at parklife and think that I gave the album a bit of a short shrift on its release.

This stripped back and sexually charged R&B comes across as a fresh and exiting alternative to most modern pop music and the whole album is full of tracks that manage to feel part of a unified sound and still work well as singles.

Pendulum has twisting and filtered percussive sounds which leave the voice as the single melodic content which makes the choruses filled with rich piano chords and guitar stand out as a refreshing counterpoint:

TOTW: Sufjan Stevens_”Should Have Known Better”

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Sufjan Stevens most recent album entitled Carrie & Lowell is an honest and heartfelt window into the artists personal life, looking at loss and love in equal measure.

The whole album takes a traditional sound of the singer songwriter with guitar and vocals and adds sound layers of electronica and reverbs to create a dreamy atmosphere throughout.

Should Have Known Better is a perfect example, Starting with a simple guitar vocal before more accompanying vocals and synths are added creating a layer of textures that bring a sence of frivolity to the piece before it ends with a more mournful lapsteal sounding guitar line:

TOTW: Route 8_MDMD

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A couple of weeks ago Hungarian label Farbwechsel released VA01 five tracks of electronica from a collection of artists.

Route 8s track MDMD is reminiscent of traditional 90s house with heavily compressed kick drums pushing through warm synth pads. It’s my favourite from the collection of tracks on VA01 which overall is a promising start to a new label.

 

TOTW: Washed Out_Far Away

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The album “Within and Without” by Washed Out is a personal favourite of mine. When I first listened to it in 2011 it didn’t reach out and grab me, but subtly over time it has worked its way into my subconscious and now I listen to it on a regular basis.

What grabs me most about this album is the dedication to its overall sound. The genre of chillwave features many synths treated with a wash of reverbs and eq’s that takes away their harshness. We’re left with a sound that is never abrasive but is distinctive. Washed out manage to carve a niche in that sound that’s unique to them.

The whole album works well and I rarely go back to individual tracks, instead let the whole thing play out in its comforting and dreamlike way. I would highly recommend you do the same but as I have to pick one track I have gone for Far Away the darkest track on the album with a synth/xylophone line that holds the vocals covered heavily in reverb together.

TOTW: Kendrick Lamar_King Kunta

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I’ve been listening to the Kendrick Lamar album “to pimp a butterfly” regularly since its release and am still struggling to decide my opinion on it. Above all other popular genre Hiphop and Rap can manage to be experimental and still maintain commercial success and this album is a perfect example.

The list of top producers, supporting artists and influences on this album are numerous and on KingKunta were treated to a mix of Funk with early west coast hiphop. The base line on this track and backing vocals could have come straight out of a Parliament/Funkadelic track and it drives the whole thing forward with a groove notorious of the funk genre. This Groove provides a great bed for Kendrick Lamars raspy vocals and the more modern sounds of production which keep the track fresh:

TOTW: Mew_Water Slides

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I Finally got to see Mew this week and am glad I did. For me this band are highly underrated. Always doing new and interesting things that push their sound.

Although they have taken a more pop feel on their recent album “+-” they still manage to create a complex and layered sound that reveals more on multiple listens. Water Slides is one of my favourite tracks, its chorus manages to pack a punch and be joyous. It’s that blend of warm pad sounds with layered guitar that keeps me coming back to their music and Water Slides continues the tradition:

TOTW: Oneohtrix Point Never_ Chrome Country

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Oneohtrix Point Never creates some of the most varied and exiting experimental music out there. Although over the past few years he has been releasing work related to his commission pieces his albums feel very much spawned by limiting himself to a collection of ideas.

This makes each album sound very different and his 2013 release R Plus Seven is no exception. It blends a lot of sounds from computer synthesis and samplers, especially the use of choir samples. This use of the weirdly synthetic and organic along with its skittish blending of musical styles makes the whole album a complex work to get your head arround.

I have gone back to this album many times now over the past year and still find more complexities in it. Chrome Country finishes the album off and is the one track I go back to the most. The blend of the organic vocal samples with warm pad sounds that all get time stretched into digital artifacts before a pipe organ finishes the track off make for a sound that is truly out there.

Throughout all the weirdness the thing that I most appreciate about his music is that it often leads to an emotional rather than cerebral outcome. Which is not the case with most experimental music.

TOTW: Alien Ant Farm_ Attitude

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Nu Metal was at its peak when I was a teenager. It was impossible to be in school in the 90s and not hear the acts Limp Bizkit, Pappa Roach and to a lesser extent Alien Ant Fram. Although the genre has a lot of negative connotations now. I have always appreciated the mix of influences found in Nu Metal when it was done well.

Alien Ant Frams second album Anthology has a lot of these moments. Moving between many genre whilst demonstrating influences from metal on most tracks and Attitude is my favourite on the album. It’s the furthest from Metal but the intricate guitar playing and sound design especially of the drums are iconic to both Nu Metal and the time period.

TOTW: Public Service Broadcasting_The Other Side

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This week I got to see Public Service Broadcasting live at the Ritz in Manchester and have been listening to their most recent album ‘the race for space’ over the past two weeks so thought it was only right to add a track from it to my TOTW.

PSB accompany documentary audio and footage with music and their most recent album focuses on the space race. This Is their first full length to focus on one topic and it works really well, allowing several key points of the space program to play out with their music.

Both the tragedy and success stories are accompanied by evocative music to match. The most successful of which is The Other Side which manages to present the first human orbit of the moon. The matter of fact nature of the speech sample contradicts the impressiveness of this momentus event which PSB Convey with a crescendo of synth guitar and drums:

TOTW: The Books_Smells Like Content

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The Books music is made up mostly of a blend of traditional instrumentation and field recordings sampled and used in interesting ways.
I recently heard a breakdown of the track smells like content on the excellent podcast Song Exploder and was intrigued to find out how certain elements were made in the track especially the percussive pattern which was made by carving groves into the inside of a vinyl record which when looping creates the interesting rhythmic pattern.