Pedro The Lion - Havasu
Second album since the American 90s indie rock band’s reformation. Mentioned in their own Pedro The Lion thread, but worth mentioning here too.
New Mach-Hommy appeared yesterday, following 2 albums last year.
One from last week, but the new Shinichi Atobe has made its way to Spotify - effortless and entirely inimitable club classics that connect the dots between effervescent dub house, deep techno and swirling beatdown
New EP from DJ Python, Mas Amable was my album of the year in 2020.
And finally, a new one from Biosphere. From Boomkat: Geir Jenssen returns to vintage analog gear on new album ‘Shortwave Memories’, taking influence from Mute founder Daniel Miller and the early days of post-punk. Feather-lite and emotive synth-heavy electronix are the order of the day, highly recommended for fans of Dark Entries or Minimal Wave and mid 90’s electronic
Yard Act - Overload
British indie band with regional accents and acerbic lyrics here to finally give the music industry the long awaited kick up the arse it needs.
Normally I love Boris and NO from last year was one of their best albums, woke up to go for a run with this on my phone, it’s a little disappointing so far, one paced, I went back to my audiobook
Maybe will reveal more on more listening and ordered the vinyl so need to give it time!
I have a few things on my list, but there’s one very clear frontrunner for me today.
Tanya Tagaq - Tongues
Tanya Tagaq is an Inuk experimental artist from Nunavut, Canada, known for her throat singing. Her work has always been pretty political; here it’s furious and intense and dark, with guttural percussive throat singing and industrial-ish beats and rage in the lyrics.
From the Quietus review
On the title track ‘Tongues’, Tagaq’s throat intones a heavy breathing as she pushes back against a clattering heartbeat and chilling synth phrases. “They took our tongues,” she hisses with a mixture of dismay and ire through teeth, before turning defeatism into a war cry: “Innuvunga (I am an Inuk) / you can’t take that from us!” Later, ‘Colonizer’ arms itself with rock abrasion and goes on a rampage. It takes the form of an electronic hardcore punk scorcher, cradling bitter cries in head-meets-concrete rhythms before tossing them around the stereo image.
Latest release from the always interesting Nyege Nyege tapes, this debut solo album by La Roche (who is part of the Kinshasa collective Fulu Miziki) is an odd blend of Congolese traditional percussion and electronic beats.
…on “Liye Liye” his outlook is electronic, examining the DRC’s musical traditions and balancing them with influences from further afield, melting Afrohouse and gqom elements with lithe, mind-altering techno, shifting soukous (a sound derived from Congolese rumba) thru grime and trap pressure.
It’s hard to express how bizarre and brilliant the result is - the ragged, slow electronic voices that growl beneath chants of “liye, liye” on the languid title track are odd and hooky, the glassy FM soundset on ‘Esperimante Abbe’ underpins loose, rapid-fire toms and left-of center melodic blasts that really sound like nothing else out there. There’s an air of Sweet Exorcist’s transportive early dance construxxions on ‘Figuyr’, but the moment you expect it to grind into 4/4, it mutates into near-highlife jubilation.
Kids On A Crime Spree - Fall In Love Not In Line
First release in more than ten years by this three-piece indie band, apparently (I hadn’t heard of them before). 25 minutes of brisk reverb-heavy pop tunes.
Mario from the above Kids On A Crime Spree is also in Artsick, along with Christina Riley, formerly of Burnt Palms and Donna McKean from Lunchbox. This is fuzzy guitar indie pop that would not be out of place on a C86-type compilation (How good was that year, 1986, eh? Vote now!)
Peeling back some of Burnt Palms’s grungy dissonance to make room for melody, Riley’s Artsick material takes pages from the Rose Melberg indie pop playbook. Her endearingly detached vocal takes are layered and drenched in Spectorian reverb, stretching out comfortably over casual chord changes. The tempos are brisk and the low end hits hard, but Riley’s presence within the mix feels comfy and confident. She invites the listener to share in the joy of making art for art’s sake, beating musician’s block through sheer gusto.
Also on my radar alongside Tanya Tagaq, Aurora & Biosphere:
Annika Norlin – Mentor
First album from the singer/songwriter behind Hello Saferide/Säkert! under her own name. Expect upbeat, wry, wistful pop; half the album is in English, half in Swedish.
Pan Daijing – Tissues
(Not yet fully uploaded here or on Spotify, presumably coming later today)
Recording of a (presumably fairly deconstructed) opera performance at the Tate in 2019, adding classical singers to her palette of processed industrial electronics and soundscapes.
Ian Cohen-approved emo/pop-punk out on Run for Cover. Some member crossover with One Step Closer, who released one of the best post-hardcore records last year. Perfect soaring teenage angst for a grey Friday morning in January.