February 2010
16 posts
1 tag
Trouble Books - Gathered Tones
One of the most overlooked albums of 2008 for me was The United Colour of Trouble Books; The eponymous debut of an Ohio three piece who craft little home made elegies using tape hiss, battered old keyboards and introspective lyrics. Trouble Books are intriguing in that it’s difficult to categorise them as anything other than ambient pop, and yet there’s nothing particularly pop...
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Perfume Genius
If you haven’t already then it’s likely that you’re going to start hearing a lot more about Perfume Genius in the next few months. The solo moniker of 26 year old Seattle resident Mike Hadreas is starting to get mentioned everywhere it seems, and that should only increase with the release of a limited 7” on March 1st and his debut album due to follow pretty soon after. ...
New Meursault tracks
Looking for an album to look forward to in the coming months? You should get excited about the new Meursault album All Creatures Will Make Merry which is due out on May 24th. I was pretty hyped on it before, Pissing on Bonfire/Kissing with Tongues has a few tracks which I would even consider as all time favourites (<3) so I was interested to see what’s next but now I really can’t...
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Clem Leek - Snow Tales
Sometimes it’s the case that the most beautiful work is born out of something which isn’t considered for too long, which exists in the moment and is crafted through sheer instinct. Generally I would say that this maybe doesn’t apply to music quite as much as it does other art forms but this view altered last year when Ólafur Arnalds released Found Songs. The premise of which...
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The Kays Lavelle
The Kays Lavelle are a five piece band from Dundee, though now based in Edinburgh and they have a new single out this week through those good folks over at Wiseblood Industries. It’s called The Hours and is taken from their upcoming debut album Be Still This Gentle Morning, which has been co-produced by Neil Pennycook of Meursault no less and is due out on 17th May.
The Hours is a...
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Mutyumu
Mutyumu are a Japanese group who have only recently come to my attention, and I can honestly say that I’ve never heard anyone quite like them. If you were to combine the sounds of Mono, Envy and Joanna Newsom then you might be going in the right direction, but it still wouldn’t really be the same. Their music is a beautiful sprawling melting pot of influences that to try and...
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Richard Skelton
Last month Richard Skelton released his second album under his own name, Landings was issued through both Type Records and on limited special edition through his own imprint Sustain Release. Since then it has very quickly become an early consideration for my album of the year.
To fully appreciate Skelton’s music though it is important to understand the concepts and motivations behind...
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Anna Rose
I’m actually a little surprised that I’ve never mentioned Anna Rose on here at some point before because I’ve been sporadically visiting her myspace page for a listen for quite some time now. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t really released anything up until now, that is changing though with two EP’s this month. Which is good because it’s music that...
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Joel Alme
Joel Alme is a Swedish singer songwriter who just released his second album Waiting For The Bells, as soon as I heard it I was totally hooked on his songs. Normally the term singer songwriter would suggest some kind of intimacy, Alme is the opposite though his songs all sound massive. Huge lush strings and grandiose brass arrangements all filtered through a 70’s soul recording and mixed...
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Balmorhea - Constellations
Constellations is Balmorhea’s fourth album in as many years, a work rate that has to be classed as fairly prolific by any standards. Not only have they maintained a quality across these quick fire releases though but they’ve continued to evolve, and Constellations might just be a document of a band at the top of their game. 2008’s Rivers Arms was a tightly hewn tapestry of...
Daughters - The First Supper
Hydra Head’s resident mentalists Daughters have uploaded the first single to be taken from their forthcoming self titled album. You can now stream the song over on the bands myspace or download it through all the usual outlets. This, their fourth full length, will be released on March 9th 2010 but sadly it seems there will be no tour to promote the record due to two of the four members...
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Glissando Live
More live shenanigans, this time with Leeds based ambient pair Glissando. You can probably garner from the artwork that it was recorded way back in December 08 at Union Chapel in London. You can download or stream the four tracks through their bandcamp. Meanwhile if you’re lucky enough to be in the area then you can catch them at the below dates soon: March 18th Leeds - Brudenell Social...
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Snowmobile - Strangers
Snowmobile is the musical guise of multi-instrumentalist Fran Allen and this is his third self released album, following on from 2008’s wonderful 100 Years. To frame his music in the simplest terms would be to compare it with the grandiose arrangements of the likes of Sigur Ros, and although it wouldn’t be a wild point of reference the appeal of Strangers lies more in the fact that...
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The Unwinding Hours - The Unwinding Hours
On their myspace profile The Unwinding Hours modestly point out that it may or may not be of interest to you that they used to play in a band called Aereogramme. For most that will probably be of significant interest, because shortly before their demise in 2007 Aereogramme released arguably one of the most divisive albums in recent memory. ‘My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not...
Metavari Announce EP Series
Indiana based electronic post rockers Metavari have announced plans to release a series of 12” EPs called Studies. Rather than just a collection of odds and ends of songs that never made it on to an album there is an interesting concept behind the series;
“The “Studies” volumes are a series of compositions, scored to collections of field recordings. The recordings are taken by...
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Field Music - Field Music (Measure)
One of the most appealing aspects of Field Music for me has always been the coherency with which their albums are constructed, often flowing seamlessly from one track to the next and with a sense of some over arching narrative or theme throughout. So it seems ironically fitting that after their self imposed three year hiatus (to work on both School of Language and The Week That Was) Peter and...
