Bloom by Beach House Was a fantastic album from 2012 and I have been looking forward to what Beach House would do next. Sparks seems to be the beginning of what’s to come.
Sparks is the first track announced from their upcoming album Depression Cherry, it starts with a looping vocal sample that provides a bed for the iconic Beach House sound of Female Vocals, Organ and Guitar.
This week I got to see Sun Kil Moon live at the RNCM in Manchester. Mark Kozeleck may get more press now for his outspoken attitude then his music but what can’t be denied is his talents as a lyricist and persona onstage. He oozed a confidence that only comes from years of live performance and over 2 hours took the audience through a history of his work in ways that were fresh and captivating. Keeping me on edge with a constant element of uncertainty and anarchism.
His previous album Benji was my album of the year and I have waxed lyrical about it on this blog before. With his newest album Universal Themes, Mark Kozeleck has taken his unique lyrical style of stripping away metaphor and simile from his songs and applied it to modern, almost immediate experiences. This Diary like style is applied across all elements of the album from its composition to its arrangement. It is hit and miss but when it does hit it packs a punch of brutal honesty that manages to summarise the experience of human existence unparalleled in any music I have heard before.
When I first heard Birds of films I was shocked by one verse. The song tracks his experience on the set of a film in switzerland and manges to cover both the mundane and the remarkable. But when he talks about his experiences of taking a woman out to a bar one evening, and flirting with the idea of cheating on his girlfriend before deciding against it. I felt like I was intruding on something too personal to be out there for public consumption.
Yet It’s these moments in all his work that show a mirror up to our existence. They show the fragility of our emotions and the randomness of our experiences. This isn’t an exaggeration of what it is to be a human like most music, It’s the truth and I find that captivating.
The fact that I can write so much about Mark Kozeleck’s work is a clear indication of what I think about him. He’s a true artist, someone who has found their own niche in folk and rock music, and over his career has developed it in new and varied directions. He’s flawed and has his weaknesses that may come across badly in some articles about him but these are the imperfections of being human. They are part of who he is and how he expresses himself and when he does that through music it can lead to the most personal musical experiences I have ever heard:
I watched Soil & “Pimp” Sessions last week at Manchester venue Band on the Wall. Their energetic performances and exiting take on Jazz has always made me a big fan and I wasn’t disappointed.
The night was wrapped up with their cover of the Love theme from Spartacus which was originally popularised for jazz on Yusef Lateefs album Eastern Sounds and used as a sample on the Nujabes song The Final View found on his album Metaphorical Music.
There’s something fundamentally fantastic about the melody of this piece, its simple yet manages to portray so much, being both joyous and mournful at the same time. Soil & “Pimp” Sessions have their own take on it diverging from the original source material in the same creative way that they became famous for when they covered wheel within a wheel years ago.
Burst Apart by the Antlers was in my favourite five albums of 2011 and is still a favourite of mine 4 years later.
All 11 tracks are great but Hounds has stuck with me. It’s repeating melody starts gently along with the vocals but over time more layers are added to the track untill brass forces its way into the mix creating direction, the rest of the instrumentation is then stripped away giving the vocals poignancy for the tracks conclusion.
The track also has a really nice atmosphere. It sounds like the whole thing was recorded in one space with a particular ambience. This reverb makes the whole thing drift arround providing some lovely textures without ever loosing control into a muddy mix.
On his album In Colour Jamie XX blends interesting samples with modern production that has its routes In the London dance music scene. It has grown on me on every play through and with his DJ sets at festivals and the popularity of the album increasing it seems to be working its way into the top spot as the album of the Summer.
Girl wraps up the 11 tracks in a woozy dreamlike way driven by electric bass and a snare sound that is sublime.
Give it a listen below:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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: