Although cryptic, Zoo Eyes’s lyrics deal with a feeling of joy in a vulnerable way.
It mirrors this musically with a sound reminiscent of 70’s British children’s TV shows. Folk music that has both a joyous and slightly sinister tinge. It dates back centuries to a time where life and death were closer intertwined in our culture and more visible in our reality.
Zoo Eyes feels intentionally dated; a throw back to the more innocent times Aldous Harding sings about. In this current day, where meta-narratives control our thoughts, Zoo Eyes provides a naive stark, relief. A respite from our current times, which I’ve really needed in the past few weeks:
I instantly liked this piece of Low-fi pop rock. I’m a sucker for slightly detuned synth lines, and Crown opens with a great one. With its instrumentation and downplayed vocal delivery, “Crown” reminds me of Grandaddy in all the right ways. A gem of a track that I highly recommend:
On My first listen to Floating Point’s latest album “Crush” I was slightly disappointed. On a mono bluetooth speaker “Crush” seemed like a mix of tracks that were either too experimental or traditional to work together but I decided to give it another listen due to my love of his previous work Elaenia.
I’m so glad I did. All my concerns with the record disappeared once I listened to the record on headphones. The use of Stereo separation on this album is a key part of the mixing. It adds exiting flourishes to the more traditional work, and manages to ground parts of the more abstract pieces and also provide continuity for the album as a whole.
The album also flows in a bold direction with his blend of strings and buchla synths shift genre between a spectrum of club music to neo-classical compositions.
At its halfway mark Is the track LesAlphx, which is probably the most driving track on the album, with a singular evolving bass rhythm driving the track. A refined aggression is created, and slowly gets more out of control over time.
On first listen LesAlphx is probably the most stand out track on the record. Its forward, rhythm driven production makes you sit up and notice it instantly. But I wouldn’t say it represents “Crush” as a whole. The album has a lot more subtle and melodically diverse moments that make the whole record worth your time.
Floating Points continues to mix styles in a fresh and interesting way. He blends synthesis known for use in more experimental music with classical instrumentation and whittles down some of its edges to create identifiable dance music that i highly recommend:
Winter is here. And in this cold weather we always crave the consumption of richness and depth. On her latest album “all mirrors,” Angel Olsen creates the audio equivalent.
To say the album has lush production would be an understatement. Wonderfully detailed textures of warm, varied instrumentation provide a comforting heart to the record. This is juxtaposed with her colder vocals, which, throughout the album, focus on detachment, both in lyrics and delivery.
“Summer” is one of the many great tracks on the album. It focuses more on synthetic instrumentation, with synthesisers replacing the string and brass arrangements that are found on other tracks.
Opening with what sounds like an ARP Solina Synth (a personal favorite of mine), it is then given a shine with forward vocals and guitar that add a levity to the deeper, darker textures. The track is then pushed along by the electric bass line. All of the instruments are mixed and produced with a warmth that can only come from some really high quality production tools and an incredibly talented engineer. It makes this track, and the album, sound timeless. It is a really great piece of work that will only get better as it ages:
It’s the 50th Anniversary of King Crimsons debut album “In The Court Of The Crimson King”. 50 years is a long time in music, and there may be many people who haven’t heard this record. To put it quite simply if you’re a fan of music, and haven’t heard this album, you owe it to yourself to give this your attention and time.
One of, if not the first “prog rock” record. “In The Court Of The Crimson King” manages to hold my attention more than many of the works in the genre that preceded it for the next two decades.
The genre went on to become bombastically bloated in complex solos from incredibly talented musicians. But what it gained in technique it lost in emotion. On the other hand King Crimson’s first record manages to be compiled of fantastic tracks that happen to have amazing solos in them. They serve a purpose rather then being the purpose, an important distinction.
The album opens with probably their most known track “21st Century Schizoid Man”. A track that works as a calling card for the record. Very few recordings have ever demonstrated a band this talented or tight. The syncopated harmony’s between each musician is a feat of dexterity and timing that can only come from incredible musicians with a near telepathic connection. When i first heard this track it was literally breathtaking.
I sat there, slack jawed and shaking my head in disbelief. There have been a handful of times in bands where I’ve felt truly “locked in”. Where every musician is working together as a whole and for a few minutes it no longer feels like your reciting music from your memory but a group consciousness.
King Crimson take this feeling an place it on record with a musicianship that elevates to a new plane entirely. It’s a pure joy to listen to and is one of the many reasons “In The Court Of The Crimson King” is so highly regarded. I’ll let you find out the other reasons in your own time:
Sam A good friend of mine recommended I give the album “Endless Falls” by Loscil a listen and I’m glad I did.
Minimal in style the album focuses on subtler elements to weave a patchwork of emotion throughout. The opening and title track “Endless Falls” starts with a field recording of rain. It sets a calming mood that the looping drones and pads enhance before a repeating collection of string instruments create a highly, emotionally charged melody.
The technique of mixing field recordings with instrumentation has interested me for many years and has been the center of much of my own music. The way a well selected piece of field recording can set tone is often faster and more direct than composition. But in it’s directness it removes some of the ability to stir up emotion in the listener. It takes a lot of skill to blend both melody and recordings together so they feel like a complete entity. Loscil demonstrates that skill throughout the record and on this track particularly:
I first heard “You Ain’t The Problem” on last week’s Later with Jools Holland and was blown away with its modern take on 60s rock/soul.
What was even more surprising is how different the version on the record was to the live performance. Many current performances rely heavily on recreating the album experience live, using samplers and playback machines to fill out the sound. But Michael Kiwanuka and his band didn’t take this approach.
Instead, they used their musicianship and talent to turn a track into something more organic, and closer to a more traditional live performance, which is refreshing to hear in a live show these days.
The album version of the track takes things in a more psychedelic rock direction, with distorted guitar, key stabs and bass lines. These subside for the verses, which musically go into soul, overlaid by Michaels vocal flow. His vocal is both fast, smooth and highly engaging.
The track clearly is based around a singer songwriter performance and its basis could easily be from a classic soul record, but the way the track flicks between multiple genres and blends elements of each shows the hip hop production heritage behind the record. This results in a track that straddles the line between modern and nostalgic styles, and mixes them both together to make a perfect cocktail.
As the opening track from his self titled record, “You ain’t the problem” sets a high bar that the rest of the album manages to uphold:
I’ve been listening to The National a lot this week and forgot just how much I loved their music and its overall high quality. My favorite album “High Violet” never puts a foot wrong throughout its entire playtime.
“Runaway” comes towards the end of the album and slows down its pace both in tempo and production by stripping down the percussion to its bare elements. It then extenuates the emotion in the lyrics with use of strings and brass orchestration that swell in and out of the piece. A great track on a now classic album that’s well worth your time:
CALIGULA is a very impressive, complete work. Blending classical, noise and metal, it creates an album with a clear and powerful vision.
When an album works so well as a singular piece, picking a single track always seems a little silly. But if you were to condense the ideas and themes into a single track it would probably take the form of “MAY FAILURE BE YOUR NOOSE”.
The track starts with classical piano and vocals that portray an abusive and suffocating relationship. Apart from the content of the lyrics, the track initially appears to follow a fairly traditional sound, with large, lush reverb, similar to classical music. But that quickly changes with the tracks first left turn.
A massive distorted bass line rips and tears its way into the sound stage, as if a portal to hell is opening right in the middle of the performance. At the 2 minute mark, distorted screams push the bass away along with the large reverb, and we are offered a brief and intimate respite before hell opens up and takes the whole track with it under massive explosive percussion and distorted screams.
It’s a bold, brave and outlandish sound that pays off in every respect. “MAY FAILURE BE YOUR NOOSE” is a great place to start but it shouldn’t be the end of your journey.
CALIGULA is shaping up to be a must for my end of year list.
Dan Snaith is best known for his project Caribou, which blends dance and Indy to create some of my favorite albums of the past decade.
However today we’re going to focus on his other pseudonym. Daphni makes music that aims squarely at the dance floor and DJ record collections. The title track on the latest EP remixes “sizzling hot” by Paradise. Increasing the BPM, cherry picking the breaks and adding drum machines to beef up the track. Bringing it back to the clubs for a modern era.
Bandcamp:
TOTW Playlist:
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