The Go Find - Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight

The Go Find - Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight
[Morr Music, 2010]

I fell in love with the Belgian band The Go Find from the very first album, from the cover (Soviet-kindergarten-like paintings with boats and palms) and most certainly to the music. Naive and beautiful simplicity, hot summer in December and stuff like that… On the third album, the picture changes from summer-water landscapes to the same type of drawing, winter-mountains, but the essence of the sound stays the same. Electronic guitar pop and mellow sound, with the vocals that sound like melted butter. Dieter Sermeus sounds a bit sad at times, and always calm. And the soothing (but pretty fast) rhythms keeps on throughout the album.

The lyrics are as sad as the voice (sometimes joined by female vocals). Like on “Love Will Break Us Up” (don’t tell me you haven’t thought instantly of Joy Division), “You always full of life / Me, always ten steps behind.” I especially liked a merry “One Hundred Percent” (featuring Karolien Van Ransbeeck of Few Bit), a simple and sweet “Cherry Pie” and “It’s Automatic”, reminding the most of the old works… Yet, the whole album sounds very… together’y, very beautiful and composed, and it’s hard to mentally stress one song over another.

The label’s website describes “Everybody Knows…” as the following metaphor: “Imagine the sound of cereal hit by milk in the morning, only heard if you listen closely. A sound that is comforting and addictive.” Little less can be said. A nice and casual sound, home-like, very warm and simple.

Read & Listen:
Official website
The Go Find Myspace

music reviews

Comments (0)

Permalink

Massive Attack - Heligoland

Massive Attack - Heligoland
[Virgin, 2010]

It’s been hard for me to get to writing about the new Massive Attack album. To the point where it might not be considered new anymore. It’s extremely good and unfathomable in its beauty and depth.

I have no idea what could be done today to say another word in trip hop without being repetitive. The Bristol Massive Attack did it. Possibly the last word in trip hop as a genre at all - like they ‘opened’ it in the early ’90s, Heligoland can be put into the top lists of 2010, no matter who releases what after this. Lots of collaborations - with old acquaintances like Horace Andy and Martina Topley-Bird, whose vocals have virtually melted into the Bristol sound. Also, mellow Damon Albarn on “Saturday Come Slow,” Guy Garvey of Elbow on “Flat Of The Blade.” TV On The Radio’s lead singer, Tunde Adebimpe, on the opening shamanic “Pray for Rain.” A specifically magical “Paradise Circus” with Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star - the voice of a 20 year old, while in fact she’s twice as old… Clapping that makes you try to clap along. A sheer beauty of “Psyche” with Martina gets another few inches deeper in your heart…

The chemical formula of Heligoland is not easy to understand, the success of the album can’t be broken down into collaborations, or Daddy G reappearing on the staff, or an intervention of some special muse. The music, whatever caused it, is on the edge of heaven and hell. Slight, piercing and very, very affecting, sending shivers down your spine and making your head spin.

Read & Listen:
Massive Attack on Myspace
Massive Attack official site
Paradise Circus film

Paradise Circus - Gui Boratto Remix

music reviews

Comments (0)

Permalink

The Radio Dept. - Heaven’s on fire (song)

The Radio Dept. with each release… not stay the same… not get better… But - stay very likable, and among the all-time favorites. With their warmth, plush and a bit of raggedness. These Swedes complete the line of simple joys: staring out of the window, holding a cup of hot tea. Heaven’s On Fire is an airy song, holding onto the thin piano threads, with shoegaze-shabby sound, not so easy to understand lyrics.

It seems like everyone you know is on your side – constantly moving against the tide

And the beginning sounds quite socially active: “People see rock’n'roll as youth culture. When youth culture becomes monopolized by big business, what are the youth to do? Do you have any idea? I think we should destroy the bogus copious process that is destroying youth culture.”

This is the music that pretends to be written by a friend of yours, when you listen to it for the first time, it seems that you’ve known it for a long long while.

Waiting for the album, Clinging To A Scheme, due out in April 2010.

The Radio Dept. - Heaven’s On Fire mp3

miscellaneous
music reviews

Comments (0)

Permalink

Broken Social Scene - World Sick (song)

The new album of the Canadians Broken Social Scene is coming in May, for now there’s a song, World Sick, given out for free, i.e., for a subscription on their site.

miscellaneous
news

Comments (0)

Permalink

Mr Scruff live DJ mix from Keep It Unreal

Mr Scruff live DJ mix from Keep It Unreal, Band On The Wall, Manchester, Sat 6th feb 2010  by  Mr Scruff

miscellaneous

Comments (0)

Permalink

Hot Chip – One Life Stand

Hot Chip – One Life Stand
[EMI, 2010]

Hot Chip is a trend becoming a legend. This British electronic band first appeared five (or more) years ago, at once becoming a “new hype” and a sensation. With time, however, unlike many other bright, but not lasting stars, they haven’t disappeared and haven’t lost their freshness. Instead, for the fourth album, they moved from being indie kids and occupying a narrow niche to being almost mainstream, and earning a Grammy nomination on the way. Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard (who, by the way, recently released a solo album) make music that is invariably uplifting, even in its more lyrical ways. Many of their hits claim a place in year’s top tens – they are so glued to the inside of your ears without any chance of getting them out of there until you’ve listened about a hundred times on repeat. One Life Stand is no exception. Unlike the previous album, Made In The Dark, it has less collaborative effort of the whole band, most of the songs were written by Goddard and Taylor. The result? One Life Stand (a track) is one of the best love songs. Thieves In The Night, Take It In, I Feel Better are songs that stand out just a little bit from the whole album surface, On Alley Cats I could swear I was listening to the Kings of Convenience, and We Have Love sounds like a twin of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love. And all this as a whole sounds very organic. A very mature work that’s also highly addictive and entertaining. Nothing else to desire.

Read & Listen:
Hot Chip official website
Hot Chip Livestream

Watch live streaming video from hotchip at livestream.com

music reviews

Comments (0)

Permalink

Four Tet - Essential mix (January 2010)

Can’t help it, I just love everything that Kieran Hebden does. BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix by Four Tet:

Essential mix (January 2010)  by  Four Tet

miscellaneous

Comments (0)

Permalink

Bonobo - Eyesdown

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

miscellaneous

Comments (0)

Permalink

The Knife - Tomorrow, In A Year (Prelisten)

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

miscellaneous
news

Comments (0)

Permalink

Four Tet – There Is Love in You

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

music reviews

Comments (3)

Permalink