Reviews
DEEP: Stanley Donwood creates Occupy poster, edgy finds a new definiton
Stanley Donwood; that art guy out of The Radioheads. He’s so cool and unique, I heard that he hates capitalism. Imagine that, ey? Sure, your bourgeois parents might not “get it”, but he’s right. He even makes art and stuff, which obviously means you should accept everything he says as a gift from a higher form of being. For gods sake, he even does some work in black, white and red, you know, like his soul. Deep shit, yo, deep. This is a product of such wild artistic abandon, a funky little poster for you to print out and wave in front of your pig like “friends”, with all their clothes and property ownership. Don’t they just make you sick?
The real question is, can man create a quote with a higher pseudo intellectual to word ratio? Go on, give it a go kids! Here’s a version ready for your Microsoft Paint pleasure. Remember, Comic Sans is always a viable font choice. Always.
Alec
REVIEW: The Weeknd – ‘Thursday’
Let us get one thing straight – I am a sad person. My life is full of disappointment. Because of this, I am bitter and angry. I look upon life with a cynical eye, much like the gay one in ‘Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie’. That’s why The Weeknd seems like a perfect match for me – an emulation of fleeting pop R&B which can’t help but seem a bit cynical, a bit over-stylised. I don’t know whether that’s intentional; maybe The Weeknd is a sincere attempt at radio R&B a lá The-Dream by its creator, one Abel Tesfaye. Frankly, that wouldn’t bother me, as, being as white as I am, I am an avid listener of campy 90s New Jack Swing and high-sheen modern R&B records. Now, if you’ve quite recovered from the Campest Confession of the Year 2011 then feel free to move your eyes towards the floor and read the other words that I did today write.
The first thing one will notice while taking a dip into the caramel-soft pool that is this particular mix tape is the production – it’s glossier and more professional than other albums which attempt to craft an experimental new strain of R&B; although that isn’t hard when you take into consideration How To Dress Well’s fuzz-pop epic ‘Love Remains’ is counted amongst them. In a market saturated by hazy, reverb-drenched noise pop girl groups it is refreshing to actually be able to hear the wealth of noises and sounds put into ‘Thursday’. That said, it is separated from generic R&B by one thing – the harshness that is at times very obvious. Many of the tracks are filled with doom, partly due to the sometimes violent-sounding production. The title track drums off in a funeral march, all of your hope drifting of as the track goes on and Tesfaye’s moans and pleas become more desperate and, ultimately, sensual.
Don’t worry about being seduced by him, though, as if you listen to his lyrics you’ll soon come to hate him; he brags about his heavy use of cocaine (one of the few things me and ol’ Abe have in common), forcing girls into group sex scenarios, and about how he’s more or less a sociopathic rapist. This is a stark contrast to a lot of modern R&B, where the storyteller is more likely to weave tales of unrequited love and The One. In fairness, songs like ‘Rolling Stone’ do evoke some sympathy, where he sings about his loss of anonymity and self-loathing, threatening to smoke weed until he ‘can’t hit another note’, something else which we share.
‘Rolling Stone’ opens with urgent-sounding bursts of noise – it certainly isn’t the ‘Merzbox’, but it’s hardly the sort of introduction you’d find on Heart.fm. Imagine a much more aggressive version of the bursts of feedback that opened Lady GaGa’s ‘Dance in the Dark’, if you’re not too cool to listen to pop music. ‘Heaven or Las Vegas’, unfortunately not a Cocteau Twin’s cover, contains twisted screeches. You feel like you could have very angry sex to this record, imagine; you’ve been married to someone for about sixteen years and, after two children, the magic just disappeared. You hate each other. Your violent rows force your sixteen year-old son to look for comfort in music journalism and coke and— oh, sorry, where was I?
Abe’s voice twists and soars in different directions throughout the record – he’s excellent at emoting and injecting a certain doe=-eyed innocence into the filthy tales that he spins. His voice seems to swim alongside the ambient synths that occupy the spaces between the metallic drums and gentle bleeps and bloops that pitter patter the reverb. He is often compared to The-Dream, and understandably so, but at times his vocals resemble the hushed tones of Devonte Hynes in his latest Blood Orange project.
It is the darker production and more seductive feel to this mixtape which really appeals – I will confess that I was not a massive fan of The Weeknd’s earlier work, but I was roped in by the steady tribal throb of the title track, which reminded me of Kanye West’s autotune’d classic ‘Love Lockdown’, another favourite. After ‘Thursday’ finished, I had to go back for more. Fuck cocaine, The Weeknd is my new shameful addiction.
For fans of: The-Dream, How To Dress Well, Autre Ne Veut, Frank Ocean, James Blake, Active Child, Blood Orange
9/10
Liam
Album Review: Jessie J – Who You Are
“Okay, coconut man, moonheads…”, and to think I turned Fugazi off for this? Believe it or not, Jessie J beat James Blake in the BBC’s increasingly out-of-touch ‘Sound of…’ poll this year. She also graduated from Satan’s very own breeding pool, commonly (though not always) known as the BRIT school. Whereas other alumni (Jamie Woon, Kate Nash and Adele) have gone on to forge their own careers, producing enjoyable and forward thinking (even if only in their references to the past) pop records, Jessie J excelled at one class only in fleeting days atthe BRIT academy – Sucking Satan’s Cock 101.
My internet connection falters and Spotify crashes (what? You thought I’d buy this?), forcing me back into Fugazi, although I can’t exactly complain. I think of Ian MacKaye, and the do-it-yourself culture the man inspired; Jessica Cornish (J’s contrastingly folky real name) sits on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Hailing from a background of song writing for established artists (most famously ‘Party In The USA’ by Miley Cyrus, a song which proved harder to masturbate to than her leaked tit photos), Cornish then has already assisted in The Man’s never-ending quest to block out our mortal woes with blander-than-beige chart poppery. Perhaps it is unsurprising, then, that her album is much the same.
The album starts with ‘Price Tag’, a song no doubt familiar to anybody who has listened to the radio as of late. It is undeniably catchy, and Cornish’s vocals are at least clear, although at times ruined by what seems to be a cheap emulation of Rihanna’s accented vocal phrasing. Oh, have I mentioned that Rihanna’s ‘Loud’ was one of my favourite records last year? Because it totally was.Anyway, Cornish seems stuck between trying to sound like she’s black and trying to push her British accent upfront, leaving her vocals a confused and often irritating mess of intonation, phrasing and lip smacking.
Other ‘highlights’ include ‘Do It Like A Dude’, the lyrics of which manage to make me cringe, chortle and consider cerebral cortex clearance simultaneously, a feat not managed since Hotel California. She also puts that charming accent on again, as she urges us to “Do it like a mandem, mandem…” Well, sorry Jessie, but I have as much interest in ‘doing’ it like a mandem as I do in ‘doing’ it like a dude: a frightfully small amount. ‘Who’s Laughing Now’ is probably directed at me, a callout for all the haters, which is a popular subject in pop music at the moment, of course while we’re at it I suppose we should SHOUT OUT TO ALL THE H8RZ… Apparently, a lot of people dissed her music (perhaps rightfully) and now they automatically like it because she is popular and popular things are good, right? RIGHT? If you’re reading this, Jessie, please remember that no matter how popular you get, I will always hold a unique form of revulsion specifically for you. Apologies.
Jessie J sings quite loudly on ‘Mamma Knows Best’. Or at least I think she did. If I’m being honest half-way through the record I had to preoccupy myself with the PlayStation One JRPG classic ‘Vagrant Story’ to make the whole “reviewing experience” bearable. Though I fear wasting any more words on this trash could cause a mild mental breakdown, thankfully I can sum it up in a handy, easy to carry nutshell. This is generic, record exec-sucking vacuum pop; but with a twist, and that twist is as follows – it is badly done. She has passion, sure, but the passion sounds like it’s not being used. I have a Black Flag tattoo, why am I even listening to this?
2/10
Liam
Review: Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
Our man Nicolas Jaar was born in New York. That’s very unremarkable – a lot of people are born in New York, and, as people often do, most of them turn out to live unfulfilled bland lives that could easily serve as a sequel to Groundhog Day. What is remarkable, however, is that after moving to Chile and then back to his hometown, he started making music at 14. Three years later he was signed and released his debut EP, ‘The Student EP’. Now he studies at Brown University, still producing his idiosyncratic brand of dance music and occasionally touring.
The album starts with the sounds of waves lapping against… something – a beach, pebbles, possibly a dead whale – I don’t know. Various samples of speech come in, one after another, before the ‘music’ starts – calming, soft keys backed by stumbling, clunky percussion and chopped up vocal samples; on paper this might sound like Burial’s ‘Untrue’ but in reality it’s much tamer – not in a bad way, though. More samples jump in – what sounds like the noises of a childrens’ play park, including an obnoxious crying child you want to repeatedly and maliciously punch in the face. Downbeat piano lunges occupy the rest of the space in the track before the waves return once more and you realise that the first track, ‘Être‘, has finished. You feel sad, like just after you watched the last episode of Friends. Confused, angry, and slightly violated, you prepare to write Jaar an angry letter before you remember the track flowed rather beautifully right into the second track. Embarrassed, you put your clothes back on, return to your seat and hope someone outbids you on the anthrax you just tried to buy on eBay.
The tracks continue as tracks generally do – sometimes there are vocals, sometimes there are not. For an artist so influenced by dance music, however, the urge to dance is a rare, precious one. This is no dance floor filler, unless you want your dance floor filled with early twenty-somethings with too small sweaters, thick-rimmed glasses and iPhones. Some moments are genuinely thrilling – when the sax and bass drops in ‘Keep Me There’, for example, is a memorable moment. Alas, these moments are just too few and too far in between to leave a resounding impression.
One can hear the influence of the post-dubstep landscape in this album; vocal samples and choppy fragments of speech that seemed to be so much rarer before the aforementioned ‘Untrue’; that clunky, robotic percussion and an atmosphere so thick even Vannesa Feltz would have great difficulty digesting it in its entirety also put you in mind of a young Burial or a more contemporary Four Tet. But, hey, let‘s pretend that Jaar isn‘t just another guy producing generic post-dubstep/new-dance records: pinches of that hate-worthy tag ‘world music’ leap at you on your first listen. He lists the African jazz legend Mulatu Astatke as an influence and although you can never really put your finger on it, you can hear the effect the man has had on Jaar’s music. Jaar himself sings – he’s no James Blake, however, and at no point does the music seem to revolve around his vocals. He’s just another instrument, another layer that tries its best to cover up the metaphorical side-boob of silence. His no-thrills vocals complete ‘Too Many Kids Finding Rain In The Dust’, turning what may have been an average track into a standout.
You may have noticed how I haven’t really said whether I like the album or not yet – I am avoiding it. I have changed the locks, blocked it on MSN and I’m appearing offline on Facebook chat. Why? Because I feel bad for not liking it. It’s good, sure, if not impressive – however I just can’t get into it. Maybe it is indeed too deep for me, maybe I went into this album expecting something different, something I could get my Thom Yorke-esque groove on to. Repeated listens began to drag and I soon found myself listening to tKoL again instead. I’m sorry Nicolas baby, I just can’t do this justice.
Oh, wait – no, I don’t care.
6/10
Liam
Review: Kohwi – Hidden Trees
I come across a lot of music in my daily travels through the internet – some of it good, some of it bad, and some deserving of ridiculous levels of ambivalence. One musical project that I was fortunate enough to discover via the world wide web is Kohwi; I was drawn in by the chill wave-esque cover, which promised hazy beats aplenty, hell, maybe even some kitschy 90s samples if I was lucky. When I played the album, however, I was transfixed by something that was quite unlike the generic hipster pop I expected.
I don’t know what the man behind Kohwi looks like. I couldn’t find anything, maybe ‘he’ is a she. If he does possess genitalia of the male persuasion I imagine he wears plaid and has a beard, although I too am wearing a plaid shirt and have a beard as we speak, so… I’m not entirely sure what point I was trying to make.
‘Hidden Trees’ is not an album that kicks around the bush. This album gets its foot lodged in the bush and has to go to hospital to have it removed. It wastes no time on getting into the first track – ‘Reeling The Warmth’, an appropriate title considering the warm synths and soothing, distant vocals that seem to hover just outside of your peripheral vision, as it were. ‘Weekrot’ begins with a blooping, piercing introduction that morphs into the stabby, metallic synth punches of the actual track, building up to bubbly electronic conclusion.
He doesn’t really make any serious departures from this sound on the album – which is no bad thing – swooning synths spinning round your head like recently expelled marijuana smoke. The distorted piano of the one minute track ‘Over Clothes’ acts a nice divider, lethargic like a quiet seaside road between two vaguely-recollected beach parties. ‘Hobbies’ is a collaboration with pal Jordan Lee, also known as Mutual Benefit, himself a purveyor of his own ‘sick’ lo-fi tunes, last.fm christening his music as ‘laser-folk’. For me, this joint effort is one of the strongest tracks on the album, something about the far-off vocals just really strikes a chord, reminding me a little of a drunken Noah Lennox.
‘Psychadelic sleep music’ is the first musical Last.fm tag for Kohwi, the actual first tag being the ever infuriating ’under 2000 listeners’. Not only do I have issue with the tagger’s spelling, I have issues with the classification of this as ’sleep music’. I see it as anything but – I see it as music to stay awake all night to, watching bad horror films and fantasising about the caffeine and ecstasy-fuelled adventures you will doubtlessly have on the morrow.
I love bad horror films, and I love Kohwi.
8/10
Liam
Review: Snowing – I Could Do Whatever I Wanted If I Wanted
Expectations are high for Snowing; the band – formed out of the ashes of Street Smart Cyclist, a band that had and has a reputation for being very good – released the hilariously titled ‘Fuck Your Emotional Bullshit’ last year, which was met with critical acclaim from fans of— well, this is where it gets tricky for me, dear reader, because the only tag I can bring myself to label Snowing with is one that generally brings about negative first impressions. ‘Emo’.
That’s right. Think of Gerard Way and his epilepsy-inducing hair or Vague Anxiety! At The Bingo Hall all you will, but that definitely is not what Snowing is. The emo I’m talking about is the raw, often chaotic lovechild of hardcore punk and college rock that started to build an underground following in the early 90s, with bands such as Cap’n Jazz and Braid still proving to be highly influential to music today. We Are Scientists and Scary Kids Scaring Kids (OK, maybe not the best example) take their names from Cap’n Jazz songs, while a personal favourite, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, cite Braid as an influence and tagged their music ‘tweemo’ in honour of the genre. This is something that warrants serious discussion on BBC Music 6 – ‘srs bsns’ – as it were.
So here we have it, Snowing’s highly anticipated debut LP. Released for free on Count Your Lucky Stars records, its sudden appearance on the internet took blogs the world over by surprise. It has taken me this long just to get over it. I’ve been playing it repeatedly since I downloaded it, and as it lasts just under half-an-hour, you’d need to be the sort of person who gets distracted by a one degree change in a room’s temperature to get bored – especially considering the blistering pace the album roars past at. Combining aggressive punk with bursts of musically-adept math rock twinkles, complimented with John Galm’s unique, somewhat shouty singing style, “I Could Do Whatever I Wanted If I Wanted” isn’t always easy to digest, but it’s worth the trying. A few songs have appeared on earlier releases, such as delicious opener ‘I Think We’re In Minsk’, which is a definite highlight, but they still feel as fresh as ever.
There seems to be some progression from their earlier work, with the album feeling more melodic at times. “Damp Feathers”, a relative slow burner, really gives the band time to shine. They never match the grandiose of label mates Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) but that’s no bad thing – I personally don’t feel as if it would suit Snowing’s respective style. Snowing suits the aggression and intimacy of a basement show, whereas E!E!(IWALE) makes one feel as if they’re leading a Roman army into battle. Other highlights include ‘Malk It’ and ‘It’s Just A Party’ – though from talking to other people it seems this is the sort of album where everyone has their own favourites. Fortunately, every song is capable of being just that – a favourite.
7/10
Liam
