Book review: 'Disaster Was My God' by Bruce Duffy

Another book review from my time at We Love This Book magazine. You can view the original here.

In Disaster Was My God, Bruce Duffy charts the meteoric rise and fall of 19th century poetic prodigy Arthur Rimbaud.

 

Born into the French peasantry, as a teenager Rimbaud was hailed as a literary genius on the basis of a handful of his poems. Yet by the age of 20 he had publicly renounced his works and absconded to Ethiopia to become an arms dealer, eventually returning to France diseased and disgraced.

 

To plot this bizarre career trajectory, Duffy eschews a chronological narrative in favour of jumping between key moments in the poet’s life: from the arid deserts of Ethiopia, to the decrepit villages of the French countryside and the seedy backstreets of Paris, where he seduces the older poet Paul Verlaine. He paints Rimbaud as a rebel in an era of conformity, seeking freedom at the farthest corners of the empire. Through his colourful descriptions and liberal doses of poetry, Duffy manages to capture the cultural and imperial spirit of the age.

 

The author takes relish in depicting a man whose life is a contradiction, a hedonistic genius whose impulsiveness is matched only by his lack of self-awareness. While the archetypes of the child-star turned to seed and his pushy, overbearing mother may be overly familiar to modern readers, there is fun to be had seeing them in a historical context.

 

Disaster Was My God is historical fiction at its best, a novel which uses vivid characterisation to bring the skeletons of the past back to life.

Top Five Unlikely Authors

What do Stewart Lee, Andy McNab and Hugh Laurie have in common? They all feature in a short piece I wrote for We Love This Book magazine about the most unlikely celebrities to write a novel. You can read the full version here.

Book review: 'Purgatory' by Tomás Eloy Martínez

A review I wrote while on work placement at We Love This Book magazine. View the original here.

The final novel before his death last year, Tomás Eloy Martínez’s Purgatory is another triumph from one of Argentina’s foremost literary and political voices.

Emilia Dupuy is a woman numbed by grief, an Argentinian refugee and cartographer living out her final days in the vain hope of being reconciled with her husband. When she encounters him by chance in a New Jersey bar, 30 years after he disappeared at the hands of the military junta, the scene is set for an intriguing novel that is equal parts stark political warning and philosophising dream. 

 

Through Emilia’s memories, Martínez transports us to Argentina in the 1970s, a surreal world where loved ones disappear without warning and people subsist on a diet of propaganda and rumour. The ‘purgatory’ of the title is a reference to both the state of the country under dictatorship and Emilia’s inability to continue with her life after the loss of her husband.

 

Neat narrative flourishes abound, from the potted biography of a doomed Argentinian celebrity to the recurrent theme of map-making as a metaphor for the act of writing. At various points Martínez even appears to insert himself directly into the text. While these switches in tone can be occasionally bewildering, they are smoothed over by the author’s effortless prose. 

 

As an examination of the effects of Argentina’s ‘dirty war’, Puragtory is faultless. As Martínez’s final novel it is a timely reminder of the immense talent that both his country, and the world, has lost.

Hackney Film Festival review

A review I wrote for the Hackney Citizen. View the original here.

The buzz of anticipation rising from the crowd of hundreds that spilled onto the pavement outside the Rio cinema in Dalston on a wet Saturday afternoon could mean only one thing: the Hackney Film Festival had returned.

The brainchild of Hackney-based director Steven McInerney, the festival debuted last year as a celebration of the wealth of creative talent that resides in the borough. For 2011, McInerney and his team ensured the festival stuck to its winning formula, while doubling its size to encompass a range of events and venues over four days, from 15 – 18 September.

Festivities kicked off on the Thursday with an informal roof-top gathering at the Platform Bar and Terrace at Netil House that had the intimate atmosphere of drinks round a friend’s living room, yet still boasted live audio-visual performances from local producer James Blanco and HFF-favourite Synthetics. Hotly-tipped Swedish singer Cornelia enthralled the crowd with her unique brand of alt-pop played out against a backdrop of swirling, psychedelic visuals.

It was followed on Friday by a series of collaborations between six visual and sound artists at Café OTO on Ashwin Street. Hackney’s best kept secret, its subdued ambience was reminiscent of an underground jazz club and served as the perfect venue for three pieces commissioned especially for the event. Artists’ Lucy Parker and Tom White combined sepia-tinged slides and 16mm film clips with field recordings to create a haunting piece that evoked the beauty in the everyday, while Heather Phillipson’s Medico-Musico-Metaphysico was an ode to the receptive powers of the human ear, with live piano accompaniment from Matt Hammond. Along with Jenna Collins and Mark Peter Wright’s The Bollingbrook Sergeant they acted as a timely reminder that the festival is about far more than simply showcasing films.

“This year we really pushed the live aspect, concentrating on the cross over between cinema and performance,” McInerney explained. “We believe it plays a very important part in contemporary film and moving image.”

The focal point of the weekend was the festival’s return to the Rio on Saturday for two screenings of films connected with the borough. The variety and quality of work shown, which ranged from the supernatural shocks of Tor Kristoffersen’s Audrey and the deranged kid’s TV pastiche of THIS IS IT collective’s Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared ensured that both of the hour long screenings flew by leaving the crowd hungry for more.

Ansku, from Finland, has attended the festival in both years. “I always enjoy the short film screenings because you see such variation in a short space of time. The whole festival is really low key and relaxed and you feel like you can talk to anyone.”

Special mention should go to Julia Pott’s Belly, a sublime lesson in heartfelt animation that dealt with the family ties between a bizarre assortment of surreal creatures that managed to be humorous, tragic and deeply human within its eight minute running time. In contrast, the visceral philosophising of Calum Macdiarmid’s Worship used stark psychological imagery to remind us that God can be found in the most unlikely of places.

Events were pushed in a more experimental direction in the evening with a selection of ‘live cinema’ pieces at the Arcola Tent on Ashwin Street. The makeshift venue resembled an endearingly ramshackle circus top, under which the audience was treated to a hypnotic display of live animation courtesy of Noriko Okaku and Max Hattler and later guided on an ethereal journey through the landscape of modern-day China by D-Fuse’s Latitude. Musician Si Begg and filmmaker Robin Mahoney produced the most surprises of the night with an audio-visual set that spliced cold war documentary footage and 80s infomercials over a soundtrack of rib-shaking bass.

Eager film fans were finally able to satiate their appetites on Sunday evening with a final screening on the Dalston Roof Park. Sheltered from the elements by an inflatable roof, the expertly compiled programme seemed to hint at a recurrent theme of the relationship between humans and the environment. Mike Wells’ Gold Dust provided a hard-hitting commentary on the darker side of the Olympic project punctuated by blasts of jazz saxophone, while Sculpture’s Olympic Sized Tantrum was a frenetic documentation of the stadium’s construction.

The event closed with director Emma Louise Williams’ introduction to her adaption of Michael Rosen’s performance poem Under The Cranes. Using archive and recent footage to examine the effect that Hackney’s landscape has on the memory and imagination its residents, it provided an apt summation of a festival that remains defiantly localised and community-based, while celebrating the creativity of the individual.

East London has no shortage of cultural events, but the Hackney Film Festival has managed to carve out its own niche in a crowded marketplace, undoubtedly fulfilling its self-prescribed remit to “create a rich film culture within Hackney by providing a platform for local filmmakers and audio-visual artists”. With rumours already circulating that next year’s events will include workshops for aspiring filmmakers, the festival’s organisers have cemented its place as an essential feature of the borough’s cultural calendar.

Toro Y Moi: 'Freaking Out EP'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.

Chaz Bundick has been on something of a winning streak this year. His second album as Toro y Moi, Underneath The Pine ditched the sample-heavy sound of his first LP in favour of live instrumentation and more tangible songs of late 70’s funk and boogie, and now a mere eight months on the South Carolina musician has birthed an EP of fresh material, retaining the newfound confidence in his song writing abilities while dabbling with a fresh palette of sounds that owes more to Prince than Parliament.

‘All Alone’ epitomises everything that’s great about Bundick’s new direction: its sleazy synths, plastic bass and infectious vocal hooks ensuring rejection has rarely sounded so sexy. ‘Freaking Out’ captures the fidgety funk of The Dazz Band so perfectly it deserves its own illuminated dancefloor, while ‘Sweet’ and ‘I Can Get Love’ are odes to Bundick’s love affair with filters, using them to twist and warp the shuffling beats, synths and vocal snippets into the kind of tracks Daft Punk might have made if they’d taken their Discovery-era penchant for Todd Edwards-style US garage and 80’s synth-pop to its logical extreme.

This is the sound of Toro Y Moi celebrating his influences rather than trying to disguise them: an attitude epitomised in the enjoyable if rather unadventurous cover of Alexander O’Neal and Cherelle’s ‘Saturday Love’, which stays loyal to the original while bolting on a new jack swing beat to propulsive effect. One of Bundick’s greatest assets is his voice, which has matured from the at-times indiscernible murmurs of Causers Of This into a rich and soulful falsetto, and here he wields it expertly to imbue the rather inane lyrics with a much-needed sense of desperation.
  
Freaking Out is proof that Bundick’s past musical decisions have been anything but accidental, as he welds his early love for synthesizer manipulation onto the more accessible grooves of his last album to create some of his fullest, most complete-sounding songs to date. The result is pop music in its purest form: songs that yearn for, and deserve, a far wider audience.

Thundercat: 'Golden Age of Apocalypse'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. Read the original here.

It doesn’t feel like there’s a lot left to say about the torrent of beat-driven experiments pouring out of L.A. over the last few years. In 2011 we’ve already seen noteworthy releases by Brainfeeder stalwarts Samiyam, Teebs and Mono/Poly, with each artist offering their own take on the “L.A. sound”. Yet by and large these releases were the products of one man’s love affair with his laptop: even Daedelus’ more hardware-driven Bespoke (admittedly released on Ninja Tune) possessed this feel, stitching together breakbeats with analogue synth sounds.

Thundercat’s Golden Age of Apocalypse is arguably the first album to come out of this scene from a committed instrumentalist with a background in live performance, something that has a clear impact on his sound. Chances are you’re already familiar with Stephen Bruner through his collaboration with Flying Lotus on Cosmogramma‘s ‘Mmhmmm’, and depending on your musical inclinations you may also have heard him lend his bass playing to artists as diverse as Snoop Dogg or his own thrash metal band Suicidal Tendencies.

‘Mmhmmm’ is a good vantage point from which to assess Golden Age, as Lotus helmed production duties on the album and was the instigator for getting it compiled in the first place. With Cosmogramma, the producer surprised many by moving away from the hip-hop roots of the scene he helped create, towards a more consciously jazz aesthetic (in terms of scope and ambition if not always in sound). In this context it’s easy to see Golden Age as a joint effort between two kindred spirits, as well as a natural successor to Ellison’s third LP.

The album opens with ‘HooooooO’, a tongue-in-cheek jazz funk homage to the titular cartoon characters, before ‘Daylight’ sets the true tone for the album: sharp-edged drum pads crashing against vaulting synths then collapsing into waves of arpeggios, the whole concoction smothered in ethereal chimes and tender vocals. Despite being explicitly the work of an instrumentalist, Golden Age is far more than a platform for Bruner’s bass playing. Whether bubbling underneath tracks like ‘Goldenboy’ or sprinting in tandem with G-Funk synths on ‘Fleer Ultra’, his basslines provide just one voice in a conversation between an array of musical elements that runs throughout the album.

The 13 tracks on offer here were compiled over a number of years, which makes for a refreshing degree of variation over the course of the album’s 37 minute running time. Take the low-slung groove of ‘It Doesn’t Matter To You’, which sounds all the more raw and live when rubbing shoulders with ‘Jamboree’, its shuffling beats and octave-spanning synths reminiscent of the fidgety electro-funk of fellow Californian resident Dam-Funk. ‘Is It Love?’ and the George Duke cover ‘For Love I Come’ are probably the best showcases for Bruner’s undisputed talent, his effortlessly soulful voice carrying both songs, occasionally giving way to dexterous displays of bass playing or evocative, echoing keys.

Elsewhere you’ll find the silky strut of ‘Boat Cruise’ and ‘Seasons’, which look back to the melodic fusion of jazz and soul peddled by the likes of Roy Ayers. These are productions that would fit as comfortably into sets by Gilles Peterson as those by Gaslamp Killer, and while the album occasionally veers a little close to easy listening territory – you’re best to avoid the laidback inanity of ‘Walkin’ altogether – it’s rescued by FlyLo’s frequently intricate and eccentric production. I’ve already mentioned jazz as an obvious touchstone for the album, but it never descends into the freeform indulgence that occasionally mars the genre, with none of these tracks outstaying their welcome.

Not, then, the album that some Brainfeeder fans may have been expecting, but it opens up some exciting new possibilities for the label as well as the scene in general. As much as this is a debut album for Thundercat the solo artist, it can also be viewed as a further attempt by Flying Lotus to explore his own jazz heritage, and it’s this focus on the possibilities of combining supple live instrumentation with rigid, artificial sounds that has secured Thundercat his own niche in a crowded marketplace.

Blood Orange: 'Coastal Grooves'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.

Shifting between aliases and musical projects can either be seen as the result of a restlessly creative spirit or a lack of direction. One man who's already worked under more musical incarnations than Bowie is Dev Hynes: whether sowing the seeds for the short lived nu-rave scene with The Test Icicles, making grandiose pop statements as Lightspeed Champion, or lending his production prowess to everyone from Solange Knowles to Florence Welch, his musical choices have been as varied and bizarre as his wardrobe. Blood Orange is his latest solo project and you can't blame someone for approaching this album with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation.

While his last solo release, Lightspeed Champion's Life Is Sweet Nice To Meet You jumped between genres so consistently that it bordered on schizophrenic, Coastal Grooves arrives more fully formed. While you can unearth fragments of music from the last 30 years scattered across the album- the genre cross-pollinations of Blondie being an obvious touchstone- there's never a sense that Hynes is trying to replicate a specific sound. The singer claims he drew inspiration from the 'identity blurring work of transgender icons such as Octavia St Laurent’, and he seems to have achieved a newfound confidence by embracing the ambiguity allowed by an alter-ego, alluded to by switches in the gender of the vocalist across the LP.

While it comes as no surprise that Hynes has turned to the indie and funk of the 80s for inspiration (let's face it, in 2011 it would be more surprising if he hadn't) it's easier to hear his music filtered through the raft of other acts that have mined similar influences in recent years. Opener 'Forget It' exhibits the rhythmic strumming and straight jacketed percussion re-popularised by The Drums, while lead single and album highlight 'Sutphin Boulevard' echoes The XX's 'Intro' in its simple but insistent bassline, stomping drum beat and reverb-laden guitar; the soundtrack to late night prowls through red light districts. Meanwhile Hyne's voice alternates between the pained earnestness of Bloc Party's Kele Okereke on 'I'm Sorry We Lied' and the seediness of early Prince on closer 'Champagne Coast', his enticements to 'come to my bedroom' managing to be both sordid and seductive.

As its name suggests, Coastal Grooves was put together in both New York and LA, a polarity reflected in tracks like 'S'Cooled' and 'Instantly Blank (The Goodness)', where dirty East Coast grooves are married with the laidback, buoyant guitars of the golden state in a bizarre union that you would only expect from an alienated Brit abroad. With a restless spirit like Hynes it's hard to tell whether or not Blood Orange is just another moniker that will be discarded in favour of the next fad, but it's a musical path that I would happily follow him down a little further.

The Horrors: 'Skying'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.

Does anyone remember The Horrors circa 2006? Prancing on stage in thick eyeliner and Beetlejuice haircuts armed with an extensive knowledge of psychobilly and a cover of The Sonics’ ‘The Witch’, they acted like the audience were the only ones not in on the joke. Only after being signed by XL and releasing the Mercury-nominated Primary Colours in 2009 did anyone outside the NME bubble begin to pay attention. Well, clearly the joke’s on us: with their third album, Skying, the Southend-On-Sea band have completed the transformation from goth pastiche to one of the country’s best guitar groups.

Skying isn’t so much a departure from Primary Colours as the logical next step. A more abrasive record, you can still hear the group’s past influences, namely the post-punk of Strange House on ‘Endless Blue’ and the krautrock and shoegaze of Primary Colours on ‘Moving Further Away’ and ‘Oceans Burning’ respectively.

They also draw on new ones: opener ‘Changing The Run’ and ‘Dive In’ have a baggy swagger that makes sense of their support slot for Primal Scream’s Screamadelica show back in June. The confidence and efficiency that they apply to straddling genres is never more apparent than on ‘Endless Blue’, which opens as an introspective instrumental of plodding bass and reverb-drenched guitar before switching tempo into breakneck grunge, like an early ’90s Sub-Pop 7″ played at 45 instead of 33.

Single ‘Still Life’ is almost too anachronistic for its own good, channelling the spirit of Once Upon A Time-era Simple Minds so effectively that it’s surprising they haven’t breached some sort of copyright. However in a culture that sees cliques of bedroom producers trying to re-construct tiny corners of the ’80s musical landscape, it seems unfair to denounce a bigger band for attempting the same.

Self-produced in their home-built Dalston studio – a daring feat when you consider that their previous album was overseen by Portishead’s Geoff Barrows – Skying is the product of a band in complete control of their own sound. This is felt most keenly in the new prominence given to Tow Cowan’s synthesizers. Whether opening the album with oscillating drones, shimmering in kaleidoscopic bursts of light on ‘I Can See Through You’ or clanging like wedding bells on ‘You Said’, they provide a necessary sense of continuity on an album of diverse influences. Ambitious without being arrogant, it’s not yet clear whether Skying represents a natural evolution for The Horrors or part of a carefully orchestrated musical master plan – we’ll have to wait for their next release to find out for sure.

Washed Out: 'Within And Without'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.

In our culture of ever-shortening cycles of fashion, it already seems an age since journalists and bloggers were falling over each other to find a suitable moniker for the movement of bedroom-produced, lo-fi electronica seeping out of underground America. While the resultant “chillwave” was never more than an artificial construct, one man who’s indelibly linked with it is Earnest Weatherly Greene, a.k.a. Washed Out. Releasing the acclaimed Life of Leisure EP in 2009, he’s waited until now to gift us with a full length album. But as the tide of hype begins to recede, the question remains whether there’s still a need for yet another lesson in hazy synths and sampled tape hiss.

From the opening chords of Within And Without however, it’s clear Greene doesn’t have time for such debates. Evoking Animal Collective at their most accessible, the soaring vocals and reverb-laden harmonies expose the presence of producer Ben Allen, the man behind the mixing desk on Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. Expanding Washed Out’s sonic spectrum beyond the high end frequencies has imbued his sound with a necessary weight, encouraging Greene to unleash his pop sensibilities and transforming ‘Eyes Be Closed’ and ‘Amor Fati’ into understated anthems that would tempt you to sing along if only you could decipher the words.

Following in the footsteps of Toro Y Moi’s Underneath The Pine, Greene has shuffled out of his bedroom and down to the studio, taking with him a selection of live instrumentation and a more confident vocal approach, the accumulated experience of two years playing his music in a live context. Freed from a reliance on samples, Greene’s personality shines through on tracks like ‘A Dedication’, which veers surprisingly close to traditional song writing territory as he sings tenderly over a bittersweet piano melody and muted horns. On ‘You and I’ he’s joined by Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, whose ethereal moans and intimate whispers diffuse seamlessly between the plodding bassline and fractal synths.

This subtle but significant change to Washed Out’s approach is most clearly felt through the role of drums on the album. Gone are the muffled compressed beats of Life Of Leisure, replaced by the clean and confident clatter of kicks and snares that ground the synth washes of ‘Before’, or the tribal percussive fills that raise the heart rate during ‘Eyes Be Closed’. Even the subdued ‘Echoes’ has an electro-disco rhythm that makes eyes at the dancefloor without quite having the courage to step onto it.

Some of the tracks still struggle to shrug off an aura of stoned apathy, and despite his strained play on Washed Out’s name there is a ring of truth to Diplo’s evaluation when applied to songs like ‘Soft’ or ‘Within And Without’. Ultimately though, this is a self-assured debut album from a musician with an increasing confidence in his own abilities. A logical progression from his previous singles, this is Greene continuing to explore a sound that he helped create, and showing there’s still some mileage left in it.

Cornelia: 'Aquarius Dreams'

Cornelia's new EP is one of my favourite releases of the year so far. Here's my review for FACT magazine.

With the release of her By ‘The Fire’ / ‘Now And Hereafter’ single in February, Cornelia Dahlgren earned a position as one to watch in 2011. Two spellbinding lessons in electronic pop, they benefited in no small part from having standout remixes courtesy of TOKiMONSTA and Daisuke Tanabe. Having spent part of the year soaking up the LA sunshine with the Brainfeeder clan, she’s now back with a new release, the first on her own label Camp Mozart.

‘Aquarius Dreams’ finds the Swedish singer evoking the innocence of childhood, extending us an intimate invitation into her own imaginary world over a see-sawing riff played on a nursery keyboard. She’s accompanied by militaristic drums and soaring synth horns that build to a crescendo before dissolving in awe at the beauty of the vocal hook.

Cornelia hasn’t lost her knack for picking good remixers either, and ‘Aquarius Dreams’ is supported by three varied but equally rewarding takes on the title track. Kid Specific doesn’t hide his dancefloor aspirations, with brittle snares snapping over a bassline that curls and stretches like a cobra, while Circle Traps’ Will Ward takes the opposite approach, couching the production in a lo-fi haze that creates a sense of physical space between the music and the listener, as if the record is being spun on an ancient gramophone in the next room.

However it’s DVA’s remix that’s been getting the most attention, and it’s not hard to see why. His most ambitious and abstract work to date, each element has been surgically removed, warped and stretched beyond all recognition, leaving the track to lurch forward in a drunken dance – unique and unsettling in equal measure.

YACHT: 'Shangri-La'

YACHT have a new album out on DFA this month. Here's my review for FACT magazine.

It was only weeks ago that professional doomsday prophet Harold Camping got a bunch of fundamentalist Christians worked up by his declarations that the rapture would commence on 21 May 2011. While his prediction proved sadly unfounded, it hasn’t stopped Claire L. Evans and Jona Bechtolt from constructing their new album around this very human obsession with attaining paradise.

Although not the most obvious concept for your average DFA electro-disco fodder, there’s certainly mileage in exploring the idea of why mankind feels the need to dream up utopian visions of the future. However YACHT have made an LP that doesn’t try to transcend the earthly but instead keeps its feet firmly on the ground, or at least the dancefloor: the sprightly plucked guitar of opening track ‘Utopia’ paving the way for some trademark LCD cowbells and frenziedly strummed bass. ‘Dystopia (The Earth Is On Fire)’ is an inversion on the same theme, dominated by a weighty synth line and ominous Ballard-esque lyrics that describe the collapse of the eco-sphere, re-cycling the chorus of Rock Master Scott’s ‘The Roof Is On Fire’ while altering the cadence just enough for it to be forgivable.

From this starting point the duo go on to tackle such heavyweight philosophical notions as the nature of God and the end of the world, while retaining a softness of touch and a sense of fun that’s impossible to dislike: a bubble-gum pink prism through which Armageddon becomes the ultimate excuse for a party. In between all the posturing they even find time for some misguided romanticism in ‘Love In The Dark’, its plodding Human League style synths accompanying dubious lyrics like “I love you like a small-town cop / Yeah I want to smash your face in with a rock”, made all the more sinister for being intoned in Claire Evans’ sultry voice.

Like the LP’s cover, the result is a bizarre mish-mash of ideas that fails as often as it succeeds, most notably in the bewildering appearance of squelchy frat-step basslines, bhangra drums and auto-tuned vocals during low-point ‘High Roller’. There’s also a nagging sense that the ubiquitous cow bells and fidgety bass that sounded so fresh when peddled by James Murphy & co back in 2005, and here form the backbone of tracks like ‘Paradise Engineering’ and ‘Tripped And Fell In Love’, have started to get a little stale. Yet while Shangri-La occasionally sags under the weight of its own convictions, you have to give Bechtolt and Evans credit for the scope of ambition employed here, attempting to create a concept album of dancefloor pop that has a valid message to convey.

Pursuit Grooves: 'Frantically Hopeful'

Here's my review of Pursuit Grooves' new album for FACT mag. View the original here.

Rapper, singer, producer: Vanese Smith is that rare thing in modern music, a jack and master of all trades. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if she penned rhymes in one hand while feeding beats into her SP505 with the other. On Fox Trot Mannerisms, her last release for Pinch’s Tectonic label, she applied the same versatility to both genre and tempo, providing her own unique interpretations of hip hop, broken beat and house.

Frantically Hopeful picks up where Fox Trot left off. Opener ‘Revolutionaries’ packs quite a punch, a deceptive false start leaving us in no doubt that we’re playing by Smith’s rules. A defiantly discordant rhythm arrives, chafing against Smith’s soulful vocals; a juxtaposition between rough and smooth that is a recurrent theme of her music. ‘Type Send Universe’ is like a real-time exploration of how far she can take her cut ‘n’ paste mentality to beats, centred around a loop that sounds like a needle skipping in the groove of a forgotten funk 7″.

Later on the album swings fluidly between the earnest rap of ‘I Sink’ and ‘Clueless’, tracks which cement Smith’s reputation as an intelligent and socially conscious MC in the mould of Yarah Bravo, and more subdued numbers like ‘Peace Talks’, a slice of nu-soul which tips a nod to the experimental beat collages of the Brainfeeder circle. As a musician based in New York, Smith’s music evokes the melting pot of cultural identities that define the city while sparing time to glance over the Atlantic for inspiration. ‘Clueless’ picks up the baton from Bugz In The Attic’s ‘Knocks Me Off My Feet’, while the aptly named ‘Bedazzled’ is a twisted take on UK Funky, killer kick drums and razor sharp vocal samples smothered in sun-drenched chords.

Closer ‘What About’ encapsulates everything that’s great about Smith’s winning formula while also managing to be the best track on the album. The classic break from Bobby Byrd’s ‘Hot Pants’ is chopped up, slowed down to a crawl and spliced with French cinema samples, while Smith’s plaintive cries of “what do you want from me?” linger in the air long after the song’s over. If there’s a criticism to be made of Frantically Hopeful, it’s that some of the tracks feel quite bare: ‘Mars Rising’ in particular sounds like the skeleton of an idea that would have benefited from being fleshed out, but that’s a minor qualm in an album of such commendable originality and scope.

Vessel: ‘Nylon Sunset’ / Peverelist remix

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.


We all know by now that Bristol’s presence on the musical map far outstrips its physical size, and despite being based in London, new label left_blank has turned to the West Country’s Vessel, a member of the Young Echo collective alongside recent Punch Drunk signing Khan, for a promising, varied debut release.

‘Ton’ takes the sprightly off-beat kick drums you’d associate with Hessle Audio favourites Joe or Blawan and sprinkles them with elasticated synths and breathless vocals, creating a piston-efficient rhythm that steadily builds before exploding in a shower of percussion. Meanwhile ‘Blushes’ is a moodier and more self-conscious affair, opening with plodding woodblocks and ponderous atmospherics before tripping into a skewed house drum riff that contrasts nicely with the track’s buoyant bassline and metallic lead melody.

The highlight of the EP inevitably comes from Peverelist’s remix, which inverts the bright-eyed optimism of ‘Nylon Sunset’ into a deliciously unsettling glance back at the murkier side of garage, a tumbling 2-step rhythm providing that driving momentum that’s a constant of so much of Peverelist’s recent work. The Vessel originals are only marginally overshadowed though – in fact, they could fit comfortably on Pev’s own label. What bigger compliment can you pay than that?

Circle Traps EP review

Circle Traps are a new project from Jack Wyllie and Duncan Bellamy, a.k.a one half of Mercury nominees The Portico Quartet, who have roped in collaborator Will Ward to provide an outlet for their electronic musings. Their self-titled debut on Subeena's Opit Records acts as an eclectic statement of intent for the producer's fledgling label while remaining an impressive release in its own right.

The group's musical background immediately shines through in their restrained but effective use of samples, both instrumental and artificial. The aptly titled 'Fjord' conjures up bleak Nordic landscapes, as beats freeze and shatter into shards of percussion while chimes ring out in the arctic breeze. Its melancholic introspection stands in sharp contrast to 'Bo! Symbol' which escorts us into the rehearsal room of a forgotten jazz ensemble, a claustrophobic space where tortured saxophones rub shoulders with frenzied reverse snares, stirring memories of Kieran Hebden's more avant garde explorations with the drummer Steve Reid.

'Perspex, Glass' is an experiment in audio alchemy, mixing the disparate ingredients of lingering piano notes, imposing kick-drums and murmured snatches of vocalist Cornelia to create a potent sonic potion, while the scattershot drums and murky sub-bass of 'Mirrors and Monuments' pay tribute to Burial's mournfully skewed take on 2-step. By ensuring that each track creates its own distinct mood, the threesome have produced an EP of diverse delights that marks them out as producers to watch and ensures this is one side project you'll want to see pushed into the limelight.

Interview with Circle Traps

An interview with up'n'coming electronica act Circle Traps for FACT magazine. Not only do they make some incredible music but they're lovely fellas to boot. View the original here.

FACT first featured Circle Trap’s spellbinding ‘Fjord’ in January, a seductive lesson in glacial 2-step that perfectly encapsulates its title.

The group, whose Duncan Bellamy and Jack Wyllie are also members of Mercury-nominated jazz group Portico Quartet, this week released their first full EP through Subeena’s Opit Records. Lovingly constructed with a keen ear for detail throughout, it features ‘Fjord’ alongside three new tracks, ranging from the furiously sampled instrumentation of ‘Bo! Symbol!’ to the moody sub-bass of ‘Mirrors and Monuments’. While their music offers parallels with the twinkling melodies of your Four Tets and Pantha du Princes, they’re already swiftly creating a sound of their own.

We caught up with Duncan, Jack and the third member of Circle Traps, Will Ward to discuss the group’s background, playing live and Chris Rea albums.

So how long have you three been making music together?

DB: “Me and Will grew up together in Cambridge so I’ve known him since sixth form. I think we used to make stoned tunes together, mainly bad hip hop. But Circle Traps have only existed for about a year. We started playing around with ideas in about June or July and finished the EP in October.”

WW: “These guys were off doing Portico business, and they’d come round in between gigs and we’d just make some tunes. ‘Mirrors and Monuments’ was our first track, and that started with Jack bringing round some saxophone loops. We sampled that and played around with it and that was a catalyst. So it started quite organically.”

Two of you come from a background of playing live instruments. Do you think that affects how you approach making music electronically?

JW: “Yeah definitely. With ‘Bo! Symbol’ we made that track by recording three and a half minutes of improvisation each and then Will put a thubby bassline on with filters, and it came from sampling that.”

That track in particular has a very live feel to it.

JW: “Yeah, because all the drums are cut up from Duncan’s session and we just chopped them up and turned them into a little groove.”

Working with samples can be quite rigid, but you’ve managed to create a very organic sound. Is that deliberate or does it come naturally?

DB: “I don’t know how it happens. With something like ‘Mirrors and Monuments’, the sax loops lend themselves to rolling, linear compositions. They sound almost like songs.”

JW: “Well that tune also started from a live recording, so I think that added to that organic feel.”

DB: ” ‘Perspex, Glass’ was mainly made by me on tour. It started from a Ravel sample, which I found about five years ago but had never done anything with. There’s different approaches for each tune. You’ve just got to go wherever it needs.”

Do you share many influences?

JW: “I think because me and Duncan have played in the same band for five years we’ve always shared music with each other. I think that was less electronic music and more modern classical and some ambient jazz stuff. But Will was a lot more into electronic stuff and got me and Duncan into that. I think while we were in Portico we were developing electronic sounds, especially the manipulation of acoustic sounds, but we couldn’t really push the MIDI side of things. So it was really nice to explore that in another project. It was another outlet.”

DB: “A lot of it came out of touring last year. Me and Jack played 170 gigs as Portico Quartet and we were on the road constantly so we hadn’t had the chance to write anything new. It was great to come home and do something else.”

WW: “I remember we first discussed doing a project together because we had this shared love for certain tracks that were coming out of the UK bass scene. It was really exciting and we were quite turned on by that, and that was what triggered it I think.”

It’s funny you should say that because there’s a noticeable sub-bass in each of the tracks that links the EP and makes it sound quite contemporary. Were you ever attempting to make music that would fit in with what’s coming out of the UK at the moment?

JW: “There was never a real emphasis on the bass sounds, but I think it creates a sense of depth so that we tried to create those levels, whether consciously or not. The bass definitely grounds the more melodic levels.”

I know you guys have started playing live together as Circle Traps. How do you translate your music into a live setting?

WW: “It was kind of deconstructing it because everything was arranged on Logic. We had these solid pieces and we had to go through them and assign each role to someone. It was quite a backward way of doing it for these guys.”

DB: “I suppose as a drummer it felt logical for me to cover the rhythm side of things, and keeping the drums live is a really good way of making it feel quite live. Jack plays anything on keys and Will is the MIDI man.”

JW: “Keeping it as live as possible and keeping the possibility that you can make as many mistakes as possible is really important because it keeps you in focus. It opens up room for more improvisation as well. So when we play live they’re not the same pieces as you hear on the EP. We can go into little improvised grooves.”

WW: “There’s a lot of new elements to the live stuff. The tracks are fundamentally the same but there’s room to be a bit more abstract.”

JW: “We could keep on making it more live, and that’s something I’d quite like to do. I think it would be quite exciting from a visual point of view to see someone playing the sax live.”

WW: “We also introduced a vocalist at our last gig for The Gravy at The Gramaphone in Shoreditch.”

Yeah, I was about to say that you played with Cornelia [Dahlgren, a Swedish singer now based in London], who’s also sampled on your track ‘Perspex, Glass’. Are you planning to do more work with vocalists in future?

DB: “Well we did a remix of Cornelia’s new EP called ‘Aquarius Dreams’ which will dropping soon on her own label Camp Mozart.”

WW: “When we finished the track it didn’t have much of her vocal left in, but we decided for our live set it would be nice to play the track as we’d remixed it and then have her sing over it.”

JW: “What I like about these things is that we can remix a track, have her sing on it and create something new.”

So are you planning to play out live again in future?

DB: “Definitely. We’ve got a few gigs lined up. We’re playing at the Aplhaville festival in May.”

The EP is coming out on Opit. How did you hook up with Subeena’s label?

WW: “Well I bumped into her a few times because she lives round the corner from me [in East London] and I’d sent her some of my stuff previously. Then I bumped into her in Morrisons and sent her the EP that evening and she liked it.”

JB: “I think me and Duncan met her through Jamie Woon at the Red Bull Music Academy at Barcelona a couple of years ago.”

It seems quite a natural fit for you guys, because the recent releases from Subeena and Milyoo also have quite a musical feel to them, although I suppose you’re their least dancefloor-orientated signing. Would you ever consider making music that was geared specifically at the dancefloor?

JW: “I guess we want to do some more stuff like ‘Bo! Symbol’, which is the most dancefloor-y thing on the EP, or at least the most aggressive thing on there.”

WW: “Me and Jack have actually made a little garage banger recently. ‘Fjord’ also has quite a garage lick to it. That could work at five in the morning or maybe as an opener to a set, although I don’t think that was ever the intention.”

One thing that’s noticeable about all four tracks on the EP is how atmospheric they are. They all have their own distinct character or mood. Was that a conscious decision?

DB: “We deliberated for a while about what to put on the EP. I’m quite happy about how it came out as I’ve always liked EPs that have a few different flavours.”

WW: “There was always quite an emphasis on texture and depth of the sound. So the mixing was something we spent a lot of time on.”

Have you got any more releases coming up?

DB: "The remix of ‘Cornelia’ will be out in the next month or so. Portico are trying to write an album at the moment so we’re just trying to fit in stuff around that.”

WW: “We all throw different stuff into the mix so it’s just a case of getting together again.”

DB: “We definitely plan to get another EP out by autumn…. or maybe ten.”

WW: “Ten EPs?”

DB: “Well, my dad was listening to Chris Rea at Christmas, and apparently he made 10 albums and then released them all as one mega-album. So maybe that should be our new concept.”

Midland: 'Bring Joy'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.

It’s hard to think of a better way to announce a musical career than a collaboration with man-of-the-moment Ramadanman, but there’s inevitably a risk that you’ll forever remain in the shadow of such a highly regarded producer. Midland sidestepped this issue by releasing the captivating solo EP Play The Game back in July, and followed it up with a string of well received remixes for the likes of Caribou, 2 Bears and Stateless. With his latest release, he continues to cement his reputation as a notable producer in his own right.

Another example of the trend for genre cross-pollination that has born such exotic fruit in recent months, this time it’s the heady combination of rough breakbeats writhing beneath the kind of ethereal synth washes that hark back to the early days of jungle. A logical progression from ‘Play The Game’, it manages to evoke the brooding contradictions of early Moving Shadow releases with featherweight chimes defying the weighty breaks they are grounded upon, a tension echoed in the masculine grunts sparring with rave-diva moans. Like Lone’s ‘Once In A While’, the impression is of a producer exploring and updating a specific point in dance music’s past, in this case the moment when the breezy optimism of rave was first tainted by the early hours paranoia of hardcore and jungle.

In contrast ‘Dead Eyes’ is a relatively straightforward 4/4 percussive number complete with rumbling sub-bass and elegant synth stabs. In the same way that Play The Game juxtaposed the breakbeat-led title track with the regimented tech-house of ‘Heads Down’, it seems that Midland is keen to remind us that he’s not confined by any one particular rhythm. Meanwhile the Radio Slave remix of ‘Bring Joy’ is a 12 minute odyssey of pitched-down vocals and minimal aestheticism, and the ‘Youandewan Warehouse Dub’ rounds off the package nicely by conjuring up the spirit of Detroit techno striding over bulging, purposeful beats.

Bibio: 'Excuses'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.

Stephen Wilkinson is no stranger to having his music pigeonholed. His 2009 album as Bibio, Ambivalence Avenue was immediately stamped with the ‘folktronica’ tag, a categorisation that he now seems keen to distance himself from. With ‘Excuses’, the first release from forthcoming album Mind Bokeh on Warp, we instead find the West Midlands producer looking across the Atlantic to draw inspiration from the sepia-toned harmonies of chillwave and the cerebral hip hop of LA’s Brainfeeder clan.

One of Bibio’s greatest assets has always been his effortlessly emotive singing voice, and here he confidently positions it in the foreground, albeit in a forlorn and distorted form. Tantalising glimpses of a proper melody peak through cracks in the playschool percussion and fractured synth lines, an impression perfectly captured by Michael Robinson’s hypnotic video which consists of a flurry of fragmented kaleidoscopic images.

For the second half of the track Wilkinson takes the gloves off and boxes your ears with an unexpected, but a deliciously dirty, glitch bass riff reminiscent of label mates Hudson Mohawke and Rustie. The producer has promised that the new album will comprise of “a balance of the familiar and the non-familiar” and this equation is literally displayed in the binary song structure of ‘Excuses’, a track that should appease current fans while garnering a few new converts to the cause, and bodes well for the album’s release later this month.

Minks: By The Hedge

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.

What is it about the sound of England in the ’80s that has such an allure for young, guitar-wielding Americans today? The answer can probably be found somewhere amongst recent offerings on trend-setting Brooklyn label Captured Tracks, where bands such as Catwalk, Beach Fossils and Wild Nothing take their cues from the downtrodden dirges of My Bloody Valentine and the studied melancholy of The Cure and The Smiths. The latest addition to their ever-swelling ranks are MINKS, the brainchild of Boston-born, New York-based Sean Kilfoyle, whose debut album By The Hedge attempts to join the dots between all of the above.

MINKS are a band who don’t so much wear their inspirations on their sleeve as have them self-tattooed on their arm with a pair of scissors and a biro. The spectre of shoegaze icon Kevin Shields haunts tracks like ‘Life At Dusk’ and ‘Bruises’, and recent single ‘Funeral Song’ is an ode to Robert Smith’s unrefined pop sensibilities, but that’s not to say that the group ever fall into the trap of letting their influences define them. While the forced morbidity of titles like ‘Cemetery Rain’ and ‘Ophelia’ could have been lifted from the pages of a sixth former’s notebook, the songs themselves are charming and surprisingly visceral. Even the despondent moniker of ‘Funeral Song’ disguises an upbeat elegy to summers past, where Kilfoyle’s vocal slurs somewhere between Dylan and Ferry atop a wailing synth, dragged forward by the simple but effective paring of bass and drum.

Album closers ‘Juniper’ and ‘Arboretum Dogs’ are strengthened by proper duets between Kilfoyle and Danish singer Amelie Bruu, and the resultant harmonies lead to moments of genuine and disarming beauty. It’s this interplay between the former’s despairing delivery and the latter’s beguiling melodies that saves opener ‘Kusmi’ from the contrived lyrics of “walking home after dark, the girls with broken hearts”. By drawing out the indie-pop wallflower that is nestling shyly amongst the album’s tracklist, the band not only honour their idols but occasionally equal them.

Don’t then, approach By The Hedge looking for much originality, instead view it as an evocative and accomplished love letter from one generation of musicians to another. As a testament to the influence that Shields, Smith and Morrissey continue to have on artists today, you’re unlikely to find better.

Isolee: 'Well Spent Youth'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.

Dance albums are strange beasts. Producers often walk a tightrope between stringing together a chain of recognisable, club-friendly anthems and taking advantage of the artistic scope that the format offers. One man who has succeeded at this balancing act twice is Rajko Müller, a.k.a Isolee, the German producer who had a devastating impact on the house scene with ‘Beau Mot Plage’, a heady cocktail of francophile guitars and featherweight synths that still sounds as exotic and seductive today as it did thirteen years ago. He followed it up with the seminal Rest in 2000, and his second long-player We Are Monster, certified his reputation in Europe’s house and techno scenes, while garnering him fans from outside that sphere.

In the seven years since We Are Monster‘s release, Müller has only offered us one compilation and a handful of EPs, varying in quality from the nu-disco delight of ‘Albacares’ to the limp ‘October Nightingale’. Set against this backdrop it’s hardly surprising that news of a new album on DJ Koze’s fledgling Pampa records has been received with a mixture of rapturous anticipation and apprehension by fans.

With such a weighty legacy preceding it, there’s always a risk that the final product will crumble under the weight of expectation, but any fears of a rapid departure from the Isolee sound are soon dispelled. Opener ‘Paloma Triste’ acts as confident statement of intent, a chamber of gently reverberating synths that’s gatecrashed by bursts of willfully out-of-tune funk bass. It’s this element of the unexpected that makes Well Spent Youth so intriguing, and there’s no shortage of ideas on display here. Each track begins with a set of ingredients and then gently stirs them into new and unpredictable shapes, evoking the sense of an audio stream of consciousness. The results range across tempos, from the twisted sawtooth waves and analogue bleeps of ‘Going Nowhere’ to the reassuringly populist ‘Thirteen Times An Hour’ and ‘Journey’s End’, which revert to more familiar territory with their solid deep house grooves. Echoes of Isolee’s previous work can be clearly heard at times, most noticeably on ‘Trop Pres De Toi (’97 interlude)’, which recalls We Are Monster’s ‘Jelly Baby’ with its vocal sample looped into meaninglessness, but the album is never simply a lesson in retrospection.

Despite the producer’s insistence to the contrary, Well Spent Youth seems more geared to the solitary appreciation of the headphones than the communal experience of the dancefloor, and the best tracks on offer create a space between your ears where Müller is free to experiment with conventions and our expectations. The jarring Kraftwek pastiche of ‘Transmission’ aside, each tune more than lives up to Isolee’s reputation for constructing genuinely inspiring electronic music, and the album has a sonic depth that the listener is able to immerse themselves in. If there’s one criticism, it’s that there is none of the instant gratification of – or indeed, nothing quite as memorable as – ‘Beau Mot Plage’ or We Are Monster‘s addictive ‘Schrapnell’. Once the album is off it’s soon out of mind, but with an LP that so clearly merits repeat listens, that hardly seems to be a problem.

JJ 'Kills'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine. View the original here.

Anyone with a keen ear for Balearic pop will have received an extra present this Christmas, as December 24 saw the free digital release of a mixtape by jj. Titled jj kills, it consists of the duo’s trademark glacial vocals layered over instrumentals ripped wholesale from the heart of commercial hip-hop. Whilst this might have been considered a bizarre conceit for an album only a few years ago, we’re now living in a world where, between Kanye, Drake, Wayne and Rihanna, bearing your soul seems more hip-hop than ever. Jj take advantage of this, wielding raw emotion onto heavyweight beats to create something special, and a logical extension of the group’s history of covering rap songs (see their versions of Lil Wayne’s ‘Lollipop’ and ‘My Life’ on past albums).

There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the depth of emotion implicit in jj’s vocals and original tracks that were often brazen about their superficiality. This is most noticeable on opener ‘Still’ which finds the instrumental from ‘Still D.R.E.’ imbued with a tenderness totally absent from the original, while M.I.A’s ‘Paper Planes’ and Jay-Z’s ‘Empire State of Mind’ are twisted into languorous hymns to fractured relationships and childhood reminiscences. As Elin Kastlander’s sultry voice drags itself across Notorious B.I.G’s ‘Angels’, there’s a childish joy in re-discovering such familiar and instantly recognisable samples, echoing the theme of nostalgia that binds all of jj’s releases. That’s not to say that jj kills is overly sentimental. ‘Kill Them’ finds Elin retorting to ‘haters’ one minute before intimately addressing her lover the next, while ‘Pressure Is A Privilege’ features a passable impression of an r’n'b diva proper, her chorus sandwiched between verses by Dre and Jay Z. However it’s telling that the latter is the most conventional, as well as the least interesting, song on display here.

As the mixtape closes on a heavily auto-tuned medley of covers from Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, it’s left unanswered whether this signposts a new direction for the group. What’s more likely is that this is a heartfelt and enjoyable diversion by two hip-hop lovers having a little fun between albums.

Toro Y Moi: 'Still Sound'

A review I wrote for FACT magazine, read the original here


Chaz Bundick has come a long way in a short space of time. His debut album as Toro y Moi, Causers of This comprised of off-kilter drum loops, distorted synths and snatches of melody and was at turns charming and baffling, but always enjoyable. ‘Still Sound’ has been lifted from forthcoming LP Underneath The Pine, and – like his recent London live show – indicates a move away from sample-heavy bedroom production and towards live instrumentation.

Taking a step back in time from the ’80s to the ’70s, Bundick eschews Prince-era indulgence for the accessible grooves of space disco and boogie. No longer stifled by layers of filtering, the funk hinted at in tracks like ‘Imprint After’ is finally allowed to come to the foreground, heralded by the introduction of a bassline that could have been lifted straight from the Studio 54 vaults and paired with an electric organ that summons up the spirit of The Headhunters.

Bundick’s voice also has a new-found confidence, as he cries out for the company of another human being. While the soulful moans on the breakdown echo his past forays into electronic dream-pop, they benefit from being slotted in between that infectious bassline, which winds through the song like a snake. If half the tracks on Underneath The Pine turn out to be this good then it’s already set to be one of 2011′s standout albums.

M.I.A.: ‘It Takes a Muscle’ (Pearson Sound refix)

A review I wrote for FACT magzine. You can view the original here.

2010 was a prolific year for David Kennedy, spent juggling his alter egos Ramadanman and Pearson Sound to deliver a string of exemplary releases on labels like Swamp81, Aus Music, Hemlock and his own Hessle Audio, while still finding the time to set-up his vinyl-only night Acetate and provide one of the sets of the year at FACT’s party at XOYO in December.

But while the rest of us were taking advantage of the dying days of the year to stuff our faces with turkey sandwiches or return unwanted gifts, Kennedy decided to offer a late Christmas present in the form of this blinding refix of M.I.A.’s ‘It Takes A Muscle’. One of the few stand-out tracks from the distinctly mediocre /\/\/\Y/\, Kennedy disassembles the electro-tinged reggae of the original and constructs a completely new creature bred specifically for the dance floor.

The Leeds-based producer has an overriding obsession with the percussive elements of his tracks, which can be felt everywhere from the jungle-esque breakbeats of ‘Blanked’ to the quasi-footwork of ‘Work Them’. He imbues his 808 drums with their own innate sense of life, present here in the intricate combinations of snares and hi-hats which seem to be mutating and evolving in real-time. M.I.A.’s vocal receives a similar treatment, irreverently chopped up and thrown into the sampler to be ejected later as distorted, guttural yelps. An intimidating bass note and moody synth line add a sense of depth, but they’re ultimately sonic window dressing for that intriguing and infectious beat. An essential record at NYE parties everywhere, this is another faultless release from a definite master of his craft and a tantalizing glimpse of what we can expect from his Fabric CD in March.