And so it would seem that another Burial & Four Tet collab is on the way. Uploaded about an hour ago to Soundcloud by Hebden himself, ‘Nova’ is the natural extension of Wolf/Moth Cub, and is for lack of a better description, fucking spectacular.
At the moment details remain rather scarce as to the fate of this track, though Four Tet has confirmed via twitter that the track will see a physical release at some point (lucky number 13 for Hebden’s Text Records imprint). I’ll keep you updated as any news becomes available, but in the meantime enjoy….
I don’t really know what I’m doing at the moment. This is a spur of the moment idea stemming from a conversation that is currently ongoing, which I’ve decided that I’m going to be an ass and go and take it off into this tangent instead of actually finishing the conversation like a normal person. So hey! What the hell, right? Fuck it, here it goes:
Because I’m an over opinionated, egotistical jackass on the internet with a music library full of shit that I never listen to but have just because other over opinionated, egotistical jackasses have told me that they are, in some way or another, worth my time, I’ve found an outlet in writing about the thing that I love the most (a good IPA is second) on this here website. I enjoy it, but at the same time I think that this very site and those like it, pick your poison — CMG, Pitchfork, Metal Reviews, Punknews etc etc — are inherently fucked because it all stems from taking the individual experience that is listening to a record and pulling it out of context; warping it into a collection of phrases and similes meant on describing something that is, at its core, indescribable. To me the power of music lies completely within the moment. Sure it can be dissected and studied, and there is a time and a place for such scholarly exercises, but that kind of approach completely misses the psychological effect that music has…
So if you’re a fan of Scuba, chances are you’ve probably already streamed his latest LP Personality. And if you haven’t had the chance yet, head over to the official soundcloud page for the album to check out one of the more controversial electronic releases of the year so far.
So with the material now out for the world to hear, what’s next? Well if you’re Scuba, hopping on to ustream for a 2 hour set for Beatport would seem to be the most natural thing. And you can catch the whole thing below.
1. Something In Between Us – Sigha
2. Like Sun – Toasty
3. Empire – Distance
4. Guts N Bones – Slaughter Mob
5. Take It Personal – Toasty
6. Anger – Search & Destroy
7. Angel – Toasty
8. Nomad – Distance
9. Brood – Boxcutter
10. The Knowledge – Toasty
11. Deep Under – Elemental
12. Candyfloss – Search & Destroy
13. You Got Me – Scuba
14. The Lights (DJ Joseph Remix) – Eric H
15. L’Amour – Slaughter Mob
16. Plate – Scuba
17. So You Think You’re Special – Scuba
18. Cognitive Dissonance – Scuba
19. Obsessed…
Sometime in 2009 I drifted away from music fanaticism. People who read this site might remember when I contributed album reviews and music criticism as a staff member and not emeritus. Similarly I had a couple of composition projects I was working on around that time that moved from amateur to professional (in aspiration only) and then to shelved before I could finish the mixing and mastering process. I have no interest in dredging the depths of my hard drive to complete these sessions, but I do think it’d be nice to share the demos.
The music is guitar-centric but is best identified as trip hop if only for the chill but detailed drum patterns. I wanted the textures to be pretty languid throughout so I sampled a lot of Javanese gamelan (a closeted love of mine) and combined this with an amazing drum kit library shared by a buddy who some of you may know as PSY/OPSogist. Compositionally I was heavily influenced by him as well as similar artists like Team Sleep, Blue Sky Black Death, DJ Shadow, and Xiu Xiu, among others.
Hopefully there’s a track or two in this collection you enjoy. Though the whole album is meant to have a flow (I’m an artíste bro), if you only have time for one track check out “These Arms.” It’s definitely the most energetic song on the album and I haven’t heard of anybody who thinks it’s scrubby (yet). Thank you!
Even though the Internet is, in theory, a technology which opens the floodgates and makes the acquisition of information more fluid, more chaotic, and more free, the simple truth is that as a result of that (over-)abundance, we feel the need to divide lest we forget how to conquer. What hypothetically should enable us to digest music without its labels ultimately leads us to label it even more ridiculously than we did before, to compartmentalise in new, almost innovative ways just in order to construct a road-map through the hell of cyberspace and the ideas with which we’re presented.
This isn’t exactly a revelation, but what interests me is the way we handle it when an unexpected event screws with our neat ideas of what constitutes good, bad, pop, metal: how do we adjust when someone moves the goalposts artistically? This has to be a test, because no person is capable of removing the art they’re experiencing entirely from its context or from the discourses surrounding it. Would that it were possible, but it isn’t.
So when Bon Iver punched through the speakers to deliver the curveball that was “Woods” way back on his Blood Bank EP, everyone went insane. You’ll recall that this was a point, distant though it now may seem, when Justin Vernon was still in most regards a cult superstar and perceived as a lonely, bearded guy with a guitar. Nobody expected anything else from him; if they claim they did, they’re having you on.…
One album that I’ve been holding out for ever since its announcement (and after hearing the My Old School EP, knowing that, one day, he’d have to present us with a full-length of some kind) is John Talabot’s debut LP, fin.
One of those rare house releases that purposefully avoids existing in any particular time frame, it eschews immediacy by slowly and patiently building itself up under waves of liquid tension and sun kissed melodies. Borrowing greatly from the ’90s Ibiza house scene, as well as using the more minimal tendencies of Europe’s more mysterious stalwarts, the Barcelona based artist has crafted one of those rare and magical albums where everything seems to work comfortably unperturbed with its surroundings or context. As a teaser for the night ahead, it’s a tantalizing call to arms; as the afternoon medication it’s simply sublime. Best served under a scorching sun with partners close at hand.
‘Last Land’ represents the pinnacle of Talabot’s production talents, featuring perhaps one of the most creative loops this side of The Field. It holds the kind of melody that house producers just seem to avoid these days, as if they’re afraid at creating a kind of anthem that they won’t be able to contain. For Talabot however, this kind of thing just seems to come naturally to him.
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You can purchase fin through Permanent vacation here.
Robin Pecknold wants to be the man on the screen – that much is clear from the get-go – but how far are we willing to bend to accommodate him? Quite a bit, it seems, judging by the Santoshian levels of patience with which all of us waited for his band’s sophomore release, Helplessness Blues, to drop. Although three years usually isn’t seen as a particularly long gestation period for an album – just ask Kate Bush – it wasn’t really the length of the wait that ended up toying with us big time, but rather the stop-start nature of the band’s initial recording sessions and Pecknold’s sketchy vision of what he wanted his group’s second album to be like. Having first said that he wanted the album to be released in late 2009, and that, “even if there are fuck-ups, I want them to be on there: I want there to be guitar mistakes; I want there to be not totally flawless vocals”, the principal songwriter for the Fleet Foxes ended up scrapping virtually the entirety of their first batch of recording sessions once he decided that he didn’t quite like what he was hearing, thus sending his entire crew back to the drawing board and about $60,000 in the hole. Once famously described by Seattle producer Phil Ek as having “talent coming out of his ass”, the Seattle native…
Riding on the curtails of a buzzing demo, followed by the left-field addition into hardcore/metal label Deathwish, Bay Area’s own Deafheaven is a poster child of success this year. Essentially springing up out of nowhere, their own special blend of “My Bloody Valentine meets Weakling” has spring boarded them into the limelight, reaching and relating to fans of multiple genres and styles. Roads To Judah carries so much depth as an album that its nearly unimaginable to believe that it’s only a debut, leaving the door open for countless possibilities and directions as to which path this enigmatic group will tread upon next. Whether its the shoegazey haze of ‘Violet’, to the post-rock/black metal hybrid of ‘Unrequited’, Roads To Judah is a melting pot of various musical styles that blend together to create one of the most memorable debut albums this generation has ever seen. – ThisLifeisGenocide
“Vulgar verbal abuse; foul-mouthed; coarse, abusive, or slanderous,” reads the dictionary definition of “scurrilous”, which, while a more-than-decent descriptor of Canadian progressive metal band Protest the Hero’s (PtH) third studio effort, doesn’t quite tell the whole story. Scurrilous sees PtH indulging in shenanigans that frankly didn’t seem possible during their unpolished (but much-heralded) Kezia and Fortress eras. Most evident of all is their…
At this point, Esoteric can be called the forerunners of funeral doom metal, because they’re just that good. Paragon Of Dissonance is more of the same from the esteemed band, only this time massive improvements have been made. The rhythm section and melodies that weave into the thick, crushing guitars are more interesting than usual, making massive song lengths seem shorter than they are. When I say massive song lengths, I mean that the longest song here is eighteen minutes long – that’s pretty long. Still, as usual, Esoteric handle their songs excellently, somehow keeping the listener hypnotized the entire time. It’s no easy task, but they make it look like child’s play. Now that’s some proper funeral doom! – Pizzamachine
Well, isn’t this fitting. A I A, elusive and gorgeous little double-mini-album that it is, is perfectly content here, as the forty-ninth of fifty great albums this year, sandwiched between two metal albums you probably forgot to download. This is an album destined to be eternally lodged in the periphery of music criticism communities like the one we have here–something that distinguishes it from, say, Bon Iver, Bon Iver or James Blake or what have you. This isn’t to say that A I A is worse than those other albums–after all, it’s my fifth favorite…
Providence is Immolation basically giving us more of the same, which just means more really quality death metal. Rob Vigna and Bill Taylor lay down some gnarly trems and pinch harmonics while Steve Shalaty rips it up on the kit. No bells and whistles here, kids – just riffs. And good ones at that. These five tasty tracks pick up where Majesty And Decay left off to show there’s still plenty of momentum and longevity in this quarter-of-a-century-old band. Let’s just hope Scion keeps footing the bill for more free metal of this caliber. – AngelOfDeath
It’s been quite a long time since Mogwai has really been able to “wow” listeners. Their 1997 debut, Young Team did an admirable job, as did 2006’s Mr. Beast, but high quality releases have been few and far between for the Scottish post-rock band. Their latest LP failed to make waves, and became a sort of “back burner” type of release. However, the creativity and intrigue absent on Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will survived elsewhere, in the form of a little EP called Earth Division. Earth Division features more thoughtful songwriting, with more lush atmospheres and mellow instrumentation, as well as vocals, a Mogwai rarity. It stands out as wholly unique, with the beautiful and touching songs being some…
Here’s another glare from Stephin Merritt, and this time it’s a reminder: before this non-synth triology of nonsense was a late ’80s, early Indie band falling into the new decade with nothing but the tricks they’d been taught to survive. Tricks which they had failed at, anyway, because of Merritt himself, hands in his face and eyes rolling. It’s funny, because The Magnetic Fields would have been a big contradiction of terms– a breezy synth-pop band with a droning, insulting genius propelling them– if it wasn’t for Merritt’s attention to detail (or: attention to himself). The synthesizers of Holiday didn’t exactly sparkle for the sun shining on them, and why would they? Merritt’s never really gone for the sugary-sweet fare of twee’s higher-ups, writing a lyric like “under more stars than there are prostitues in Thailand” when he might have learned a more romantic sentiment from silliness like “la la love you.”
But Merritt is not silly. He’s like the version of himself Scott Walker sees before ghosts teach him to love Christmas, using the synthesizer as a tool to turn the theatrical into a pantomine, from the aliens-do-country road trips of Highway Strip to his definitely-ironic retelling of how people love on 69 Love Songs. He’s spoiling movies and ruining stories, and “Andrew In Drag” is a track, weirdly, in the spirit of those two records, downbeat and hysterical but told deadly serious, like the man rolling his eyes now and forever. And it’ll make sense in context,…
I mean, I kind of do. This should be my year-end feature, where I put the albums I liked in an arbitrary list so you can understand how I experienced the past twelve months. But how could I write that when I have no fucking idea what happened the past twelve months? So instead I’m writing this: an attempt to make sense of the most bizarre year– of music, of life, of culture– that I’ve ever experienced. I don’t think I’m going to succeed. What’s to follow is a self-indulgent rant on phenomenal music I didn’t really get, my bewilderment over the critical reception to Bon Iver, and a Channing-esque query as to what music even means to me anymore. But I have to do this. Even if I don’t know why.
I don’t think I’m alone. The entire year, I got the sense that nobody really knew what was happening in 2011 but just sort of ran with it. Reading the various year end write-ups across the internet, I’m comforted to see at least a couple other publications acknowledge of how weird this year was. SPIN, for example, is all about it. They seem excited about where this directionless quagmire is going to take us in the future. I’m fucking terrified of it.
It’s an old argument, but even as an internet writer, I have to admit the internet is over-saturating culture. To paraphrase Milan Kundera, we no longer live in a…
An interesting year that was: notably lacking any clear frontrunner for that coveted “album of the year” title recently occupied by Kanye West (not here, but that’s besides the point) and Animal Collective, it was nevertheless filled to the brim with brilliant music that often dealt with “pop” in some capacity, be it eschewal of its conventions or brazen embracement of its occasionally unsavory tendencies. Merrill Garbus did the former and, in the process, acted on the limitless potential of pop’s universality – a useful technique, considering that w h o k i l l was, more than anything, a record that, in the words of a certain Maya Arulpragasam, “put people on the map that never seen a map”. Gang Gang Dance and Dan Bejar released two of the year’s most critically acclaimed albums by adopting the latter method; both Eye Contact and Kaputt found effortlessly distinctive vocals surrounded by garish sonic touches, presented mostly without irony.
When the powers-that-be at SSC (that’s “Sputnik Staff Central” for those out of the loop) almost ruled that all staff were to place their year-end lists on the blog this year, I quivered at the thought. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to center one picture, so could you imagine 25 or 40 of them!?
As it thankfully turned out, the consensus suggested such posting would be non-mandatory, allowing staff to be flexible with what they put up on the blog. All of a sudden, I thought that I would manage to scrape something half-decent together. And then, my learned colleagues had to get all artistic on me, didn’t they? Sowing led out before I even knew what my Top 25 albums consisted of… Chan & Tyler posted cool photos which would probably see me in jail for licensing infingements… Newbie Adam Knott went with the simple – but cool – idea of just listing songs instead of albums… Jom posted more links than I could click at… While Matt appeared from nowhere with a Hemingway-inspired half-a-dozen that totalled all of 18 words!
It was all too much for my feeble mind to take in… Resulting in this hodgepodge of albums, EPs, songs, videos, gigs & one final defining moment of 2011. Hopefully, it doesn’t come off as too informal and/or half-assed in places, and in the next week or so I will be formally posting my Top 40 albums & songs of 2011… As a LIST! Fuck…
Look I know this looks like a big wall of text, and believe me it really is, but I sort of have a point. First off, it’s true I’m lazy and I’ve spent my entire Christmas break applying for Graduate Schools (get a real job amirite?) and frankly the last thing I want to do this Christmas Eve is hunt down images and work on layout for a few hours. I didn’t even vote in the staff best of (so don’t blame me). Most importantly though a thousand words are worth a picture so maybe these words might paint an appropriate year-in-review. As the title suggests, this has been a year where the 80s have ruled supreme; I want to dedicate this entire year, actually, to the under-appreciated 80s electro-pop duo OMD. Saxophones, keyboards, sex, and hazy soundscapes of drunken post-Sharon Stone effluence and tumescence dominated the sounds of the year—canticles of vanity in the best way possible. M83, Destroyer, and Bon Iver were big movers this year and they ultimately define this sound.
It was a good year. It was not a great year; certainly not a great year in respect to 2010. There were some stellar recordings, but there wasn’t too much fight in reaching my top 25. Feist’s Metals, The Dodo’s No Color, Bill Calahan’s Apocalypse, Phonte’s Charity Starts at Home are significant runners-up, and I never did get to The Roots’ Undun or WU LYF. Once the 25 was set, the order
