The Tough Alliance - Prison Break EP

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

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Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind (EP)

Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind (EP)
[Domino, 2009]

The year started with Animal Collective, with Animal Collective it ends - very successfully at both. Merriweather Post Pavilion irrevocably placed them into the mainstream and brought about a round of applause on the critics’ part. And the current EP only gives a foothold for this.

With most sincerity: I adore Animal Collective. I’ve said numerous times how they influence me personally and help me deal with the chaos around. But I also love them for the fact that they’ve been doing the music they like for such a long time, despite it being too “niche” and somewhat out of place - and now they created a space in this seemingly overcrowded place, and made the so-called mass market embrace them. Five new tracks are not the brightest ones in the now rich band discography. If you imagine that this is the first thing you hear by Animal Collective, maybe you won’t readily grasp them - it’d be better to start off with something like Strawberry Jam or Feels. But for the prepared ear, this music melts in your ears and in-between them, like honey. “Bleeding,” by the way, is a very flow-y song, built primarily on vocals and dragging you into the dreamy ambient. “What Would I Want? Sky” has a sample from good old Grateful Dead’s “Unbroken Chain,” although a rare fan of both bands, divided by generations, can recognize it.

A beautiful bacchanalia: tingling, flowing, rushing and sometimes roaring, but most of all reminding you of elvish flirting in a magic wood. Frisky dancing to the flute (on “Graze”), noise of a close, you’d think, highway (”On A Highway”) - while walking the frailest of paths, and, finally, a true magic and mystery on the closing “I Think I Can,” with shamanic mantras, when the trees and the bushes have thickened around you. All this is quite far from anything you’d expect a modern music scene would bring, but at the same time, it’s nothing but Animal Collective.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Animal Collective Myspace
Animal Collective accidentally leak the EP (via Hotcakes)
Pitchfork news
Preview of Fall Be Kind

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Hauschka - Small Pieces EP

Hauschka - Small Pieces [3'']
[Secret Furry Hole Recordings, 2009]

Volker Berterlmann (a.k.a. Hauschka), a pianist and composer from Dusseldorf, is the most talented composers of today. His every work, be that LP or EP, makes my universe a bit more balanced and good. This 5-track, 3” will refine your life for fifteen minutes of its length. Released on a small Italian label Secret Furry Hole Recordings, the mini-masterpiece Small Pieces is a practically non-prepared piano sketches. The number of copies is limited to 300. Very much like photos or postcards sent from a journey - without any general sightseeing wonders, but instead with a deep insight into small episodes of local life.

This music is perfect for “catching a moment” and seeing beauty in everyday experiences. Piano music often comes as sentimental (like Yann Tiersen, for example). Hauschka leaves melodramatic aside - his piano works are subtle, magical, romantic, but without sentiment. Crystal clear and open, like photographs, without impressionist fleur. The main theme of this EP is sadness, as the name of the first track, “Sehnsucht”, “longing.”

Read & Listen:
Hauschka website
Secret Furry Hole Recordings

Hauschka - Sehnsucht mp3

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Massive Attack - Splitting The Atom EP

Massive Attack - Splitting The Atom EP
[Virgin, 2009]

Massive Attack are back after six years of silence with not yet an album, but an EP that’s worth several albums. Splitting The Atom resembles a hard, serious book - you don’t get the essence all at once, but after the sevenths read. (I might be overrating here, but not from the first time, at least.) At first, you feel something abstract like “there’s something about it.” Sounds a bit like what they did before, but not quite. Then, when you grow closer, you find new levels, depth and detail. It’s probably best described as sex - with the first contact the general feel is created, and then, as the story unfolds, you pay more and more attention to detail and get into the process. Erotic relations are not incidental. Massive Attack has been, and remains, for me one of the sexiest artists ever. Not as much a “soundtrack for lovemaking” as the inner energy of music.

On Splitting The Atom, we celebrate the return of Daddy G (he was absent on 100th Window), and reappearance of old friends, Horace Andy and Tricky’s ex-girlfriend Martina Topley-Bird. Other contributors are Guy Garvey and Tunde Adebimpe (of TV On The Radio). The pace and darkness of the title track reminds a bit of Nick Cave (here we have Horace Andy and Daddy G). Smooth suavity continues with Tunde Adebimpe on Pray For Rain. Psyche featuring Martina is a dragging tenderness with hidden notes of mild hysteria. Beautiful melancholy is characteristic of all four tracks. Bulletproof Love with submerged rhythms and Guy Garvey’s vocals closes these 23 minutes.

To summarize, Massive Attack make a step to the new level. Previously they have caused quite a resonance in the head, and now their music is more like quiet steps. It wins you over one sound at a time, smoothly and softly. Not a stormy affair of youth, but a mature relationship, for a closed circle of initiated.

Read & Listen:
Massive Attack website
Splitting The Atom on YouTube

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The Radio Dept. - David [EP]

The Radio Dept. - David
[Labrador, 2009]

A four-track EP is no substitute for a long-awaited album, but at least it’s something to feed off in terms of the Swedish shoegaze mood. Needless to say, even one track, David, by The Radio Dept., brought comfort from the first listen, and has been in my playlist for weeks. An airy melody with a kind of trip-hop beat that wouldn’t be out of place on a Portishead album (old one more than the latest). Dark, brushed and blurred vocals, and a transparent and light orchestration that makes your heart miss a beat. It’s an unbelievably beautiful song, like morning dew disappearing in the sun.

Messy Enough is a more smooth and expected song. The rhythms is faster than the vocals, and the general sad mood prevails. Something to be expected of The Radio Dept. And the last two tracks are The Rice Twins’ (it’s a techno duo of Stockholm) remix on David - a lighter and more minimalistic version, with a different rhythm, almost (but not quite) stripped of shoegaze; and less-than-two-minute long The Idle Urban Contemporaries, a finishing guitar-string instrumental coda.

Waiting for the album now even more, because 13 minutes is definitely not enough…

Read & Listen:
The Radio Dept. Myspace
Labrador
David mp3

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Burial & Four Tet - Moth / Wolf Cub

Burial & Four Tet - Moth/Wolf Cub
[Text, 2009]

A vinyl 12’’, limited edition, sold out by preorder by those who knew for sure: it couldn’t be anything boring or banal. No cover art, no notes, the tracks just go as 1 and 2, so you have to guess which one is Moth and which one is Wolf Cub. Wiliam Bevan is a master of disguise, no one knew the name behind Burial for a long time. Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) kept company, and we didn’t even know whether this was a split or a collaboration. However, the guessing in favor of the latter turned out to be correct - both tracks resemble Burial and Four Tet at the same time. Moth being a bit more Burial, and Wolf Cub inclined more towards Four Tet. As if each wrote the core of one track, and then they exchanged and worked together. Whatever the process, the music is pure magic, and these 18 minutes are more whole than a lot of albums.

Wolf Cub (if my understanding of which one is which is right) is a high-voltage stakkato pumping on your nerves something with bells on a mild twostep beat. And well inside the track, appears fogginess and streamlining of forms. Makes you follow the soundscape like a turning kaleidoscope. Moth brings about a straightforward 4/4 rhythm, as if covered a bit with snow, very soft and somewhat distant and sad. From a suspenseful intro second by second appear ghostly shadows, and the music unfolds like a mystery. Phantom-like vocal samples pull you inside the music storm, a tender power of nature.

These two tracks are like two sides of the coin (or, rather, a vinyl), and whatever the number of repeats, I can’t get enough of them.

Read & Listen:

Burial/Four Tet: “Wolf Cub”

Burial/Four Tet: “Moth”

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Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - #4

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - #4
[Labrador, 2009]

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names have their fourth EP out, with a usual and simple name, #4. What stays? The same off-key sining, the same joyfulness and playful moods. What has changed? Lo-fi sounding is not so lo-fi anymore. Home-made arrangements changed to a more technically sophisticated disco-beats. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still sweet and nice. But the EP does sound very much like another Swede, Jens Lekman. Home pants and slippers are over, now it’s not a Sunday suit, but still something to wear to school. The EP opens with 1999 - synthetic rhythms and dogs barking on the background. Studenter På Flak has a more romantic feel to it, with whistling in-between signing. Europa has soft, mellow guitars, it’s a simple and easy-going song. And the final track is a beautiful World Music song, with african rhythms brought to the general Swedish indie pattern of the EP. All in all, Johan Hedberg and Peter Gunnarson sound very much like themselves, a bit more polished than they used to, but still good old “kids next door” type, playful and happy.

Read & Listen:
SKWBN Myspace
1999 mp3

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Flying Lotus - 2×3 EP

Flying Lotus - 2×3 EP
[Warp, 2008]

The second of the three EPs from Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus. After a wonderful Los Angeles album it seems, there’s nothing more to write about, it’s been all said. But the 9-track EP does deserve a couple of words (that again fail me).

It’s a remix album… that is, EP - but still sounds like a whole album. These music bullets shot right at your ears, have been prepared together with Mike Slott, Nosaj Thing, Ras G, Samiyam, Exile, Monopoly, and more. Roberta Flack in Mike Slott’s version sounds like a miracle, airy and uplifting. In general, 2×3 EP brings new light to the tracks you know: with Darth Vader’s breathing, with clicks and clacks of heavy artillery, all kinds of metallic toys banging, with streams of air through architectural structures… The music that builds new and new layers of unique atmosphere around you.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Myspace

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