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Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:44:00 -0700

"In their 20-year history, Daft Punk have redefined electronic music, pioneered the live dance concert experience and shaped pop culture. Random Access Memories is Daft Punk's first studio album in eight years. It is their most ambitious and epic release to date comprising 13 tracks and over 75 minutes long." - Insound

Average rating: 7.5 - Genre: Electronic

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Little Boots - Nocturnes

Thu, 09 May 2013 19:20:00 -0700

"Little Boots aka Victoria Hesketh became one of the most talked about new popstars around when she arrived with her Gold-selling debut Hands in 2009. The highly-anticipated sophomore studio album, Nocturnes, is released on her new On Repeat Records imprint. DJing all over the world at many of clubland's most esteemed nights over the past few years and collaborating with an elite roll-call of dance music's most credible class, Victoria named the record Nocturnes because it is "an album indebted to the night." A collection of perfect pop melodies set against faultless beats and synths, it is true long-player, and a sonic experience from beginning to end. The album was produced by DFA Records co-founder Tim Goldsworthy, with other key contributions from Simian Mobile Disco's James Ford and Hercules and Love Affair's Andy Butler. Nocturnes is a powerful record of irresistible hooks and stunning songwriting that celebrates 90s house, seventies disco and futuristic electronics while maintaining the magic of classic pop." - Amazon

Average rating: 7.5 - Genre: Pop

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Deerhunter - Monomania

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:02:00 -0700

"Deerhunter return with their seventh (or thereabouts) studio album; it’s obviously manna from heaven for their many devotees, but will it win them any new converts? It actually might, you know: to their credit, they’ve moved away from the washed-out, colour-bled shoegaze sound that's defined them for most of their career; Bradford Cox’s songs are now more robust, and the performances - bolstered by a second guitarist and new bassist - feel full of fight, harder to ignore or forget.

The marvellous ‘Neon Junkyard’ and ‘Blue Agent’ sound like White Album-era Beatles dragged through the bushes by a Flying Nun band like The Clean or This Kind Of Punishment; ‘The Missing’ is serene, surging jangle-pop that would’ve ruled the provincial indie-discos over here any time between ‘86 and ‘94; and ‘Pensacola’ is a punk-country pastiche that shouldn’t work but really does, summoning the bluesy, boozy swagger of Epic Soundtracks and Rowland S. Howard. Cox and Nicholas Vernhes’ production is spot-on, giving the well-turned songs the focus and brightness they deserve while also privileging rough edges and surface grime. The result is Deerhunter’s most likeable LP in years and perhaps - perhaps - even a minor classic of modern-day garage/college rock." - Boomkat

Average rating: 8.2 - Genre: Indie Rock

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Savages - Silence Yourself

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:48:00 -0700

"The highly anticipated debut from London's Savages, an all-female four- piece who play music with scything energy and brutal power. Recorded with Rodaidh McDonald (The xx), the album is an 11-track, 38-minute masterpiece. Limned in black and white but containing a swell of different emotions within its self-imposed strictures, the songs cover topics from masochism ("Hit Me"), urban dread ("City's Full"), materialism, possessivenes and the experience of being a woman ("Husbands," "I Am Here"). Every one is delivered with fierce conviction and concision." - Insound

Average rating: 8.4 - Genre: Post-Punk

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Mikal Cronin - MCII

Tue, 07 May 2013 19:02:00 -0700

"Mikal Cronin’s self-titled debut from 2011 was all about endings: the end of college, the end of a serious relationship, and the end of his time in Los Angeles, where he grew up. So it’s no surprise that his sophomore release MCII—and first disc for Merge Records—is all about new beginnings. “Since the first record came out, my life has changed quite a bit,” Cronin says, referencing his move to San Francisco and tours with Ty Segall as well as with his own band.

“I was presented with a whole new slew of problems and situations that I was trying to work through.” “Am I Wrong” and “Shout It Out” dissect his fears over a new relationship, while “I’m Done Running from You” and “Weight” find him freaking out about what it means to grow up in the 21st century. Other than these few exceptions, Cronin played all of the instruments. “It all makes total sense to me, but when I step back, it sounds kind of schizophrenic,” Cronin says. “Hopefully it all sounds enough like me to make sense.”" - Norman Records

Average rating: 8.2 - Genre: Alternative Rock

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Still Corners - Strange Pleasures

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:58:00 -0700

"Strange Pleasures is the second album by London's Still Corners. Where its predecessor, 2010's Creatures of an Hour, also on Sub Pop, soared on sugared layers of shoegazing- infused retro- futurism, Strange Pleasures proffers a leaner, more acute extrapolation of '80s-suffused song and studio craft, navigating a sinuous trajectory between velveteen noir-pop and the glacial, mellifluous territory mapped by Modern English, The Cure and The Passions. Presaged by the soaring "Fireflies" single, Strange Pleasures brings the Still Corners story up to date." - Insound

Average rating: 8.4 - Genre: Indie Pop

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Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:48:00 -0700

"The third volume of electronics-savvy saxophonist Colin Stetson's New History Warfare album series, and if you ask us, the most pungent and poignant of the lot - thanks in no small part to the dab hand of Ben Frost, who recorded its 11 tracks in single takes and has done a splendid job of capturing the molten intensity of a Stetson live performance.

Pre-release chatter has focused on the presence of Justin Vernon, who handles lead vocals on four of the tracks: particularly noteworthy are the pulsating, cyclical opener ‘And In Truth’, which sounds like Philip Glass's 'Floe' sung by the Beach Boys, and a cover of Washington Phillip’s gospel song ‘What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?’, in which the Bon Iver mainman comes over like a spiritually wracked Randy Newman (i.e. you have to be in the right mood, to say the least).

Vocals appear elsewhere throughout the record, but as more of a spectral, gaseous presence supplying texture above all else; but of course it’s Stetson’s extraordinary sax-playing that’s the star of the show, providing as it does rhythm, tonal colour and flights of aching, jazzy lyricism, often in the space of a single piece. It’s impossible to separate the instrument from the musician: Stetson’s sax feels like an extension of his soul,if you'll forgive the cliche, possessed of a fluency and fire that demands your full attention. We’re particularly blown away by the aptly named ‘Brute’, a grinding, propulsive industrial blues that conveys more violence and viscerality than a hundred blown-out noise sides, but are getting just as much succour from the gothic melodrama of ‘To See More Light' and the more plaintive chamber-style pieces like ‘Among The Sef’, which summons 70s John Surman and even the Michael Nyman Band - though the tremulous calm of the harmonies contrasts with the sound of Stetson’s fingers furiously gunning the keys. It’s incidental details like this, not just Stetson’s profound virtuosity, that make this record such a worthy proposition." - Boomkat

Average rating: 8.3 - Genre: Dark Ambient

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Neon Neon - Praxis Makes Perfect

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:04:00 -0700

"Neon Neon (Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip) present their new album, Praxis Makes Perfect -- the follow-up to 2008's Mercury Music Prize nominated Stainless Style. The album is a musical biopic of Italian publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli's colorful life viewed through the lends of Gruff Rhys' highly original songwriting and Boom Bip's shimmering synth-heavy production. Guests on this album include two previous Neon Neon co-conspirators in Josh Klinghoffer of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Cardiff's Cate Le Bon, plus Italian pop sensation Sabrina Salerno and actress Asia Argento." - Insound

Average rating: 6.6 - Genre: Indie Electronic

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The Veils - Time Stays, We Go

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:54:00 -0700

"The Veils return with their highly anticipated 4th album Time Stays, We Go released on their own Pitch Beast Records imprint. Recorded at Seedy Underbelly Studios in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles and produced by lead singer/songwriter Finn Andrews and Adam Greenspan, Time Stays, We Go marks the beginning of a captivating new era for a band already hailed as “The best and most unsettling thing I’ve seen in music this year” by The LA Times and “Quite possibly the most underrated band on the planet” by NME." - Smokecds

Average rating: 6.0 - Genre: Indie & Alternative

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Young Galaxy - Ultramarine

Thu, 02 May 2013 20:09:00 -0700

"Pairing the best indiepop and disco fingers of Canada and Sweden, Young Galaxy's 3rd album, 'Ultramarine' is another triumphant homage to a time when pop music didn't equate to mum-folk or R&B-trance. Studio's Dan Lissvik coolly handles the Canadians from his sauna in Sweden, tweaking out the most affective hooks in ten of the cutest arrangements oscillating between the New Order-esque positivity of 'Pretty Boy' to the charming sino-dub-pop romance of 'Hard To Tell' and disco-ready electro on 'Privileged Poor'." - Boomkat

Average rating: 7.3 - Genre: Pop

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