As you may be aware I’m a huge fan of anything Piano, I’m also a fan of ambient music. So mixing those two together will always get me exited.
Tomorrow Was The Golden Age is a new album by Bing and Ruth and manages to do just that so find yourself a quiet hour, sit back, put on some headphones and immerse yourself in the beautiful world of stretched out classical instrumentation and wide ambiences:
I have been Listening to Boreland for a while now, they have always impressed me with their sound design and lush use of synths with a dark lining.
Over this year they have released two albums under the name OMAR and the final track from the first of the two entitled Philipa’s Secret stands out as one of the best. The rich vocal pad sounds and arpeggiated synth lines are right up my street and it manages to do them whilst still holding the albums overall darker themes.
I’m a big fan of the Blues Brothers but this track stands on its own. Maybe in hindsight the track feels more poignant due to John Beluchis personal experiences and death which seem to be intimately reviled in the track. But I also think it’s these experiences that enable him to deliver the lyrics with an authenticity that make it so powerful for me:
On hearing Crystal Castles had broken up last week I got a bit nostalgic and gave their albums a listen through.
I managed to see them live four times. Two of those gigs were easily in my top ten and one of which was one of the worst I’ve been to, I think it sums up the band quite well. They were bottled lighting, trying things that were always different and when it did work it reminds me of the descriptions of the punk movement in the 70’s. Anarchistic youthful rebellion wrapped up in a sound scape that forced you to either be in the gang or out.
I’m most certainly In that gang. When I look back at their catalogue Baptism stands out as to me as the perfect introduction to their work. It has everything that made them great, The video game style synths, the screeching vocals of Alice Glass and the hard compressed repetitive drums all make for a unique and exiting work:
Happy Songs for Happy People is an album i still go back to years later. The harder eadge of the post rock sound is here, but used with softer dynamics to create allot of raw power.
Killing all the Flies manages to demonstrate both sides of this album and the development of mogwai as a band into their future works:
My Favourite track by the Specials. Stereotype features the darker side of Ska that was also found on Ghost town. Mixed with the cynical and political lyrics that are synonymous with the band and the punk movement:
I’d like to start with the caveat on this one that metal isn’t really a genre of music I enjoy on the most part. When I boil down my issue with most of the genre and all of it’s sub-genre I would say that although It contains allot of talent It usually feels a bit empty to me. By definition its sound is Harsh and angry and yet allot of the time the lyrics and vocals don’t seem to put across this anger and hate.
In Toxicity System of a Down don’t have this issue. The whole album seems to come from a place of overt anger and hatred conveyed perfectly in its title track below:
Kutiman is creating some fresh and exiting music that quite simply couldn’t exist five years ago.
This whole track is made from chopping up other artists on youtube creating a college of samples which then become a fully featured track, a great one at that.
This music exists because of the evolution in technology over the past few years. We can now get “usable” audio quality from our mobile phones and then upload it straight to online for other people’s consumption and even use. Something Kutiman exploits brilliantly:
It’s been a long time since Richard D. James released music under his most famous alias Aphex Twin, 14 years to be exact.
Now the time has come for the release of Syro later this month and to build up anticipation minipops 67 has been released to tease it.
It may have been 14 years but this track manages to show that he has been keeping up to date with the latest musical innovations interweaving them with the unique sound Aphex Twin is known for to create an evolution of his work that is still true to its roots.
I look forward to hearing more:
I always love a track that surprises me with a direction and sync by Cloud Castle Lake does just that.
The track starts vocally led with simple accompaniment but get to the one-minute mark and the track opens into a full spectrum of tones and instrumentation: