Eno · Hyde
High Life
[Warp]
The recent Someday World focussed (pleasantly) on previously discarded pop tunes brought to life by Karl Hyde’s vocal contributions, drawing a comparison to Eno’s work with David Byrne on Everything That Happens. This second collaboration with Hyde channels the more impressionistic end of Eno’s work with Byrne, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts though not quite in the same league as that album. Here vibes are teased out in place of verse-chorus-verse structures, to fine effect on DBF in particular.
-Ian Lamont
Groom
Bread and Jam
[Popical Island]
Groom aren’t cool. That’s great news for us since they can just stick to being smart, funny and a pretty good time. *Bread and Jam* picks apart, obsesses over and, when applicable, celebrates the minutiae of the modern Irish experience from the mifty to the Liffey through a lovingly Britpop-ish lens. Each return visit to the record reveals a flourish, be it lyrical or instrumental that can’t help but make you crack a smile. Ana mhaith ar fad.
-Danny Wilson
FKA twigs
LP1
[Young Turks]
LP1 should be the record that solidifies FKA twigs sound. Far from being homogeneous however, twigs’ first full-length release feels broad and experimental with sounds that range from sultry Spanish guitar on Lights On to the footwork-cum-altar boy Closer and the haunted carnival vibe of Numbers. Throughout twigs’ ethereal voice provides the constant thread, even when oscillating between breathy and soulful to perilously high across everything from sensitive ballads to odes to masturbation.
-Emily Carson
Jungle
Jungle
[XL Records]
Essentially every track on Jungle’s self-titled debut sounds like it’s made to soundtrack a car manufacturer’s idea of what “cool” is. That might be a little unfair since you can tell the folks involved here are genuine synth fetishists doing what they love but sure that’s true of Moby as well and it didn’t do much to preserve his legacy. There is no need to seek this out, you’ll be sick to back teeth of it in a few months either way.
-Danny Wilson
A Sunny Day In Glasgow
Sea When Absent
[Lefse Records]
Heretofore ignorant of this dream pop band with the emo name, Sea When Absent arrives as a blitz of aural pleasure caked in rich shoegazing washes but crisper definition in the melodies and timbres structured in the foreground. Comparisons to MBV are natural given the aural territory and the vocal contributions from Annie Fredrickson and Jen Goma, but Sea When Absent is lighter and more playful and if anything the record it most easily conjures is emphatic splendour of Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People.
-Ian Lamont
OOIOO
Gamel
[Thrill Jockey]
As the album title suggests, OOIOO have incorporated the metallophonic instrumentation of the Javanese Gamelan tradition into their established sound; rhythmically complicated jams punctuated by bursts of group chanting and free-wheeling lead vocals by Yoshimi P-We. The gamelan elements bring a ritualistic ambience to the band’s already far-out sonic explorations. Gamel is an exhilarating and joyously weird addition to the band’s distinguished catalogue.
-Ivan Deasy
Wild Rocket
Geomagnetic Hallucinations
[Self-released]
The requisite stoner-rock nods to Hawkwind and Sir Lord Baltimore are present and correct in this Dublin quartet’s debut long player, with the rogue element being the Moog synthesiser, which burbles away like an unusually melodic transmission from the Arecibo radio telescope. The vocals are delivered through a cloud of effects so dense as to render the lyrics incomprehensible but they function just fine as another layer of cosmic slop. It’s an immersive piece of work, best consumed during extended periods of inertness.
-Ivan Deasy
Shabazz Palaces
Lese Majesty
[Sub Pop]
Lese Majesty continues where the celebrated Black Up both in its infuriatingly fractured track titles and its wonderfully abstract reimaginations of what hip-hop might be in the album format. Rather the a slew of set pieces with “featuring such-and-such” interspersed with filler, Lese Majesty flows from start to finish as a piece, immersing the listener in some sideways universe that hints at jazz and electronica while front man Ishmael Butler’s rhymes fritter and flip through a variety of sonic filtrations. Unique.
–Ian Lamont
