Read & Listen

In the proximity of Bonobo’s “Black Sands” new album release (March 29, via Ninja Tune), there is a beautiful (should I mention this?) track Eyesdown. Follow the flyer link, and it will get you to the mp3.

Bonobo - ‘Eyesdown’ (Preview Edit)  by  Ninja Tune

The Knife will release a new album, Tomorrow, In A Year, on March 1, 2010. Gloomy and eerie sounds are an opera, built on nothing else but Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of the Species.” Wild nature as is.

Read & Listen:
Tomorrow, In A Year

Four Tet – There Is Love in You
[Domino, 2010]

Kieran Hebden once again proved that he’s a true magician. The new Four Tet album “There Is Love In You” makes your heart skip a beat, which is a very rare quality. Luckily, it doesn’t happen all 47 minutes of its play, otherwise I’d get a stroke somewhere within the first listen. Some moments bring you to a neuron orgasm, and the rest of the time it’s foreplay with eardrums, lengthy audio tenderness… All this really sounds like lovemaking – affectionate, slow, immaculate. When you’re expecting a bright finale, and instead get several more minutes of elongated pleasure. Ecstatic theme continues from the previous LP, “Everything Ecstatic”. Alright, so much for erotic themes, let’s get to music.
Continuous loops, infinite swagging of tracks, it’s all not so much about crescendo as about getting you to some other level of perception. The magic begins with the beautiful opening track Angel Echoes, which gave name to the album title, there is love in you. The phrase repeats over and over in a soft female vocals, with bells and rhythms bogging you about a meter down. The next piece, single Love Cry, keeps you in the thick of this electronic water enhanced with oxygen. The influence of Burial on Hebden in the past years is obvious, and Love Cry proves it every second and every beat. Nine minutes of wholesome enjoyment in minor and dark tones. The rhythms are responsible for half of the hypnotic effect, the other half provided by loops and melodic. This is true not only for this track, but for the whole of the album.

After the first two diamonds, the album gets into a more quiet place. This doesn’t spoil the sound, just gets you to catch your breath for a while. Additional moments of pure joy are Sing – which is surprisingly reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker”. This Unfolds does what it says – unfolds slowly, like quiet snow falling to the ground or clouds surfing the sky, then rhythms add up. And it’s impossible to stop listening to Plastic People, a touchy six-minute track, again making you think of Burial.

A wonderful album for social meditations, asocial comatose and other autistic manifestations in the social environment.

Read & Listen:
Four Tet official site
Four Tet on Myspace
Angel Echoes
Angel Echoes (BBC session)  by  Four Tet

The Tough Alliance - Prison Break EP
[Sincerely Yours, 2009]

Eric Berglund and Henning Fürs have been silent for a long while, and here comes a little, but intense release, Prison Break EP. Six remixes - all of them highly addictive, in the Tough Alliance manner, with enhanced danceability. One of the tracks is a mashup of an old TTA “First Class Riot” with a newer (but not really new) “A Touch of Jules & Jim” by jj. The rest are a number of disruptive remixes of “Neo Violence” (who would have thought?) - by Laidback Luke, Shazam and Woolfy, “First Class Riot” remixed by El Guincho and “A New Chance” by Juan Maclean.

As a result, at some times, you get a dose of high-quality techno and/or house, and the next minute inject yourself with the purest TTA cocaine. All together is perfect for a party - to get your frozen blood flowing again in the middle of winter.

Read & Listen:
The Tough Alliance Myspace
Prison Break on Sincerely Yours
“A New Chance (The Juan Maclean Remix)” mp3

My song of the day was determined when I started morning with the new album by Los Campesinos! “Romance Is Boring” playing in my iPod on the way to the office. And now I find the video for the title song. Enjoy!

Romance Is Boring by Los Campesinos! from Los Campesinos! on Vimeo.

Kieran Hebden’s new album, There Is Love In You, premiered on Soundcloud. If you google/twitter, there are downloadable links too. I really dig one of the comments on Soundcloud: “Everything Moby tries to be, but isn’t.”

There Is Love In You by  Four Tet

Delphic - Acolyte
[Polydor, 2010]

Right now Delphic (of Manchester) is the hottest new thing. Several months before the Acolyte release, the album was proclaimed by critics as the greatest debut of the coming year (or, at least, the first loudest one). The second single, This Momentary (with the video from Chernobyl), made us wait for the release and at the same time worry that it wouldn’t be able to match our expectations. Fortunately, that’s not what happened. Acolyte is a fine work. It’s hard to compare Delphic to anything (I mean, to only one thing), and the style “alternative dance” gives only a vague impression. They sound like Bloc Party, Orbital (they’ve been opening for these two), Underworld, M83 (having their producer, Ewan Pearson), dance version of The Notwist… And at times they also sound like Duran Duran (on Submission). The 80s are not their strongest point. What Delphic are good at is combining beautiful guitars, great lyrics and danceability… Sounding like a million bands and artists at once, and not like anyone of them in particular, is probably the sign of true talent today, when all the harmonies have seemingly been found and all music styles created.

Counterpoint

This Momentary

Read & Listen:
Delphic on Myspace
Delphic on R.FM
Delphic on Twitter

Today’s song of the day is the second single from the forthcoming Delphic album, Acolyte. The album is already hyped about to the extent of nearly getting in the 2010 tops. New New Order and comment like this… Anyway, the drive and the speed of the track are astonishing!

The video for the song was shot in Chernobyl.

Let’s do something real!

This Momentary by delphic