
What a truly great week for music. Totally all over the place I think. Not so many big names. Maybe the best of the year so far...
THE PIXIES - Human Crime (BMG)
by Tim London
I can forgive The Pixies for almost anything and so I will. Actually, this ain’t bad. But what an impossible job, to follow up the most sublime rock music almost ever. The Pixies can only ever be compared to themselves and they are beyond compare.
ALEWYA - Ethiopia (Boddhi Satva) remix (dontknow)
by Toon Traveller
POLIÇA - Rotting (Memphis Industries)
by Tim London
Uptempo Fever Ray.
KEVIN MORBY - This is a Photograph (Dead Oceans)
by Ancient Champion
Oh well. The 'bigger' you are the longer the lead time between announcement of and the release date of your product. You should know I could have a new track out tomorrow. Kevin Morby has a new LP out on May 13th, called This is a Photograph and this is the title track. And it really is quite brilliant. I love his music a lot. But I hadn't seen him, seen what he looks like. I know where he live(d). I know things about him. However, after listening to his music for many hours, it was disconcerting for me, very, to see words from this song, great words, well worth singing, funny, spikey, barbed, sentimental... to see those words coming out of a mouth. Kevin Morby's mouth, in an otherwise all together great video and music track. Now of course we can debate whether on video I am seeing Kevin Morby at all. I am seeing a ghost an apparition of something Kevin got up to doing a while ago. More than 1 day ago. Lots to think about with Kevin.
WET LEG - Angelica (Domino)
by Tim London
The same glorious summer tune twice in one rock song.
JAMES KRIVCHENIA - Emissaries of Creation (Reading Group)
by Ancient Champion
From James Krivchenia's forthcoming Blood Karaoke LP. Dear God. Emissaries of Creation is a hauntologists delight. Composed mostly from hundreds of tiny samples of unwatched YouTube videos found through random online generators (such as Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentations, video game walkthroughs, old local news clips, etc), mangled midi fed into Krivchenia’s rig of synthesizers and pedals, and then meticulously layered and collaged. Exciting and short. Like an inverse of a famous Annie Hall joke. And just as entertaining.
ALABASTER DEPLUME - Mrs Calamari (International Anthem)
by Ancient Champion
Alabaster DePlume's Mrs Calamari minimal and beautiful. From the forthcoming and much anticipated Gold LP. One of the more unique artists in the UK right now. Not defying description, just not getting defined here. You really should listen.
ONEREPUBLIC - West Coast (Interscope) ZERO
by Tim London
Every cliche ever in a 2010s pop song.
TEEN IDLE - Burning (Eyes of Horus)
by Ancient Champion
Just give this a moment to get those guitars going. Teen Idle's first new music for 2022. Bigger, better, everything. The Sound of Young New Jersey...
STEVE VON TILL - Indifferent eyes (Revolver)
by Toon Traveller
Sloth intro, bounces of sound, empty streets, yesterdays papers wind floating, a dystopian vista, peopled with sad pained lost lives. This is the sound of bar, long after "last call for alcohol", swishes of the cleaner's floor brush, on the bar wood. A slow drag of a last dog ended cancer, the last dreg in a last glass, that seen too many shots of pain's worst killer JBs JDs, and Turkey 'wild'. Alone in the night of his dark thoughts and empty hopes. this song scrapes like a rusted razor, it pulls and drags, Steve's voice a sub-Tom Waits (in a GOOD way) excruciating drawl of cowed pain, deep in a hearts of place all too many of us are to scared to look for, let alone engage and explore. This is darkness, soul-less-ness in a dark self-realizations of nothing left inside, this is pain, guttural, uncompromising, and self aware, there is no sense of redemption, no sense of hope, just life being played out achingly, a screw turning slowly. This comes from the night terrors of childhood. Now alive, and real in the dark soul-ripped and ego shattered, psycho damaged, world this song wants to exist in. SEVEN minutes unrelenting misery. I used to think, depressing music was Nick Cave, or Leonard Cohen. Von Til has Cohen Lyrical composition, and shares his minutia infused imagery. Like Cohen, Von Til know what to leave out, to tell a dark story of death's door wretchedness, this is not a pretty listen. I don't think I can actually "LIKE" this song, but it deserves recognition for it's raw, visceral, primeval, desperate passion. I suspect not many will like this song, and I would worry for a friend if they did. This is one for hardcore morose, down in the depths of the dark night of the soul, or for those happy clappy chappy people who believe global warming is good coz the sun makes us happy happy happy .
HARI SIMA - Del Barranco del Rio (Objetos Perdidos)
by Toon Traveller
From the new ‘Solo en Occidente’ LP. THis... On the river's ravine, a great concept and I'm always up for chilled out, cool grooved ambient sounds. The Press Release talks about Tangerine dream and that's there all over the track, echoes of Edgar Froze Aqua, a classic at the time, slow themed repetition this should be delight in sound, cool as mountain on an Italian Beach, but it's ambivalent, in all senses of the word. Some will say look at the video, the problem is the music, I listen to it, I groove, relax, chill, and dance, watching a video isn't part of the deal. This is ok for someone whose Knowledge of Tangerine Dream is limited, to next to nothing. T Dream are a guilty pleasure, that this track has helped me confess to that.
FLO MILLI - PBC (RCA)
by Tim London
Special Skit Review section: it’s short and is what it pertains to be criticising.
Now, back to the singles reviews: ‘pretty for who?’ Obviously pretty for music programmers for model competition programmes.
Single: https://youtu.be/sURT4LJizXs
SPRINGTIME - The Names of the Plague (Joyful Noise)
by Toon Traveller
CAROLINE - Caroline (Rough Trade)
by Ancient Champion
Caroline... Well I was checking through a list of record releases and the attendant cover art and associated capsule reviews somewhere and somehow I'd gotten confused by the sleeves, dissociating them from their bands. And so, I want to like everything about Caroline. But I hadn't liked the cover, which turned out be an obvious indie rock record cover even when I associated it with another record and then it's not making me love Caroline any more now I know where it belongs. Caroline, I don't know.
RAVEENA - Asha's Awakening (Moonstone Records)
by LamontPaul
Raveena surely, impossible not to love. Perfect contemporary Pop. Fab Vince Staple Cameo. 15 minutes little fluffy cloud chill out warm down (Let Your Breath Become a Flower (Guided Meditation)) (required) at the end. So Asha's Awakening, don't look at this as a bad thing - if some aging dude with a saxophone said they were making a concept LP about a Alien Punjabi Princess who crash lands into love and loss you'd be like wow, what's the way to Diskovery Records. Or HMV wherever you do that thing with your gold plated pension. So, songs and sound gorgeously constructed around Raveena's effortless voice. It's a highly polished high romance of a record and soulless boys you should consider aching a little more. When I am thinking I should be working, Raveena has me dancing. And maybe longing a little.
CHARLOTTE ADIGERY & BOLIS PUPUL - Topical Dancer (Bounty & Banana Records)
by Toon Traveller
This album has a had a lot of interest and I think deservedly so. Pretty great vibe going on. Esperanto has the right buzz. An invented language that tells it's own story whilst borrowing much from 80's electro, nothing wrong in the that, Making Sense Stop could be taken from the 70's arcade game PONG, some lovely samples there, and a simple Euro sounding beat, this is nowhere as razor sharp as Esperanto, sounds a bit like Tom Tom Club, or the B52's in the quirky, staccato vocals, in an overall ok way. Ha Ha Ha is a standout, recorded, sampled and chopped up laughter. So that's the fuss, Topical Dancer is a great album full of razor sharp observations, lines of put down, and assertive self confidence. Musically and vocally mixed up but I like the album all the more for it..
JACQUELINE TAIEB, LE GOUT DE SON - Play It Like Jacqueline (Anthology)
by Ancient Champion
Oh this record is so brilliant it is hard to imagine it exists. So fantastic I feel that I am having the wool pulled over my eyes but as I listen, the wool pulled from ears. Wow! Is Jacqueline Taieb even real and if so why wasn't this number one all over the world? Totally fantastic remix record for the smashing up the streets french republic of revolution kids. Even Roland Barthes might approve. The best record I haven't understood in the last 60 years.
Essential Info
Main Image screengrab from the Pixies Human Crime video
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