Grimes, the moniker of Montreal artist Claire Boucher, has been under-the-radar for some time now--roughly since the release of her geidi primes cassette, a little over a year ago, off Arbutus Records--but she comes out of an intelligent electro-pop tradition that, we can only think, is good for the music stratosphere at-large. That geidi primes debut cassette can still be had, free of charge, on Grimes' Arbutus Records page: grab it here. For those of us who found early Nite Jewel too distant, and had hoped for a more emotive downbeat disco, this is the download for you:
Grimes' sound has been self-described as "goth-pop" derived from "Medieval organum, R&B and hip-hop," an observation that could be lost on no listener: she has an almost Palestrina-esque moan; her version of pop is one with near ties to sacred music. But that's not to over-hype Grimes--when we speak of sacred music here, we're speaking of the quality of sound, which is something like the sound of a lone woman rhapsodizing in a cathedral. It has that lofty, sweeping sensation that makes her new cut, "Vanessa," off her recent split 7" with d'Eon, a tremendous success, and contributed to the haunted, gorgeous atmosphere of her Halfaxa LP, off which you can find the excellent "Weregild" offered below.
Needless to say, "Vanessa" represents an enormous forward step for Boucher--positioning herself where, before she re-exploded onto the scene, Robyn might have been some time ago. We're all ears on further material, whenever it should surface, and we encourage you to keep an eye on her too, via her Myspace.
Oh, and the art at the top of the post? Claire Boucher's work. We, folks, are in the presence of one hip, hip lady.
Here at image:music:texts, we like to cover good music, but we'd also like to celebrate art and photography as well. So, this is a shout-out to all artists, illustrators, photographers, and enthusiasts, and fans:
Send us an image of what you feel captures the spirit of electronic music in NYC. We will choose one and construct an hour-long mix in the theme of the winning image, the first in our IMAGE:mixseries.
Submit your images to us at imagemusictexts@gmail.com; we'll be taking submissions until June 1st.
In the meantime, for some inspiration check out some of Tessa Farmer's incredible artwork for Amon Tobin's ISAM here, and our review of the album here.
Cults 7", the massively catchy and roundly lauded debut from Cults, made for nostalgic, love-lorn whistling all of last year. The exceptional cuts, "Go Outside," and "Oh My God," in particular, brought the million-watt bulb of online press attention to bear on the rapidly exposed, considered, and swiftly loved duo. This week, they made the leap one craves from any well-received group: a decisive (but not wholesale) shift away from the whimsical naivety of their early tracks. The 70's-sunshine-infected "Abducted"--off their Cults LP, slated for June 7th via In the Name Of/ Columbia Records--marries touches of folk, pop, and electronic in a feel-good, synth-glazed lament for these young spring days.
What a treat on this, the most auspicious of holidays: Amon Tobin posted his upcoming album, ISAM, for preview in full on SoundCloud earlier this morning, following an announcement on the Ninja Tune site that the album is now available digitally after leaking online earlier this week. You'll find few perceivable resemblances to his previous LPs here; there are, however, similar themes in this one: a balance between fulness and negative space, darkness and light, tenderness and coarseness; the effective theme is a mechanical portrayal of nature. He plays with a wider range of acoustic textures and conceives a veritable work of art. Overall, it's a another one of Tobin's trips across a wide soundscape of emotions, calcimined by a nostalgia for something that never happened.
"Journey Man" and "Piece of Paper", as well as "Lost & Found" (featured on Ninja Tunes XX Anniversary box set), all recall the Eskamon project, with a crunch for every well-placed abstracted percussion sample. "Lost & Found" seems to be the progenitor for the rest of the album's tracks, and provides a context for the album at-large.
"Surge" feels like a Foley Room castaway, only without the familiar structure that made many of those tracks memorable in their own right; it's one of the more amorphous pieces with a will to lull.
"Goto 10" is reminiscent of tracks made for his Two Fingers collaboration (cf. "Trickstep Rhythm"), while "Bedtime Stories" opens up soft and sweet, like Foley Room's title track, but instead of coasting on a recognizable plane, it unfurls into something heavier.
"Wooden Toy" sees Tobin experimenting with vocals again, in a similar way to "Horsefish" of the previous LP, except here it's set to the backdrop of a lonely night near a dimly-lit carousel.
"Kitty Cat" can be imagined as a collaboration with the Gorillaz; it is a rare number that features singing in verses (a notable departure), not just vocal play.
"Calculate" is a curious number in how novel it is in Tobin's cannon, and it's also the shortest on the album. It has as a shimmering-fog-style approach found in Télépopmusik's Genetic World; this is a singular and almost parenthetical track, and the feel of it is distinct in its slow, innocent build-up to a quiet recursion.
Here's a video with Tobin on a Continuum Fingerboard, showcasing his designer spectral morphing, as well as a few others, as heard on ISAM:
ISAM is available digitally now at the Ninjashop and iTunes with bonus track "One Last Look", and is set to be released in physical format May 23rd.
Go to the ISAM site here for more info about the album and the upcoming art instillation, opening May 26th to June 3rd at the Crypt Gallery in London.
Just under three years ago, three dudes from Leeds join forces and etch their place in bass music history; Hessle Audio unleashed upon the world not only its creators, Ben UFO, Pearson Sound (a.k.a Ramadanman) and Pangea, but the likes of Blawan, James Blake, and Peverelist. May 16 will see the imprint's first compilation titled 116 & Rising, a double-CD/ triple-vinyl project that will no doubt have the same reception as Hyperdub's 5, fixing a well-deserved place for the label on the Mount Olympus of UK dance.
We've taken the liberty here to provide links for track previews where available, with the tracklisting below:
Nottingham's Lone, a.k.a Matt Cutler, releases in 6 days sounds from the other side of the Bermuda Triangle: the Echolocations EP made for skywalkers lounging on beachclouds 5 miles above the Galápagos. This 6-track, double-12" debut for R&S is a follow-up to Emerald Fantasy Tracks, and continues Cutler's tropospheric-bent old-school rave and Chicago house his style's been recently couched in.
Two days ago, Just A Number 05272011 quietly released a new mp3 to TheFader. "Business" indulges a more club-oriented vein than the earlier tunes, "He Didn't Want a Love Song," and "The Pain," both of which we covered a few weeks back.
In our minds, the rise of Just A Number 05272011 is inseparable from that of the rather unfortunately named Christian AIDS (also on our blog some weeks ago), maybe because they caught our attention--and then everyone else's--at nearly the same time. In that respect, we hope (or do we?) that the two outfits aren't somehow playing a nasty trick on us: if you asked a paranoid, he might say you could hear the rave-happy Christian AIDS producing the track behind those shrieking vocals. They're probably not one in the same, but still. Now we've got you thinking.
That said, this is excellent music, and we should all be happy for the mystery...while it lasts*.
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*We would like to throw our hats in here to offer, perhaps, a possible solution to the mystery of Just A Number 05272011. Now, while the moniker sort of suggests that we not question whether the number is anything other than a number--it's "just a number," no need to investigate--the opening line of The Fader's post caused a thought to pop miraculously into our heads:
Just A Number 05272011 have, bar none, the most unwieldy name ever in the history of time and all names in all art forms ever. Just kidding probably. It’s up there for sure though.
It just sort of occurred to us--and I'm sure to many before us--that the number is a date. Maybe for an album: 05/27/2011. Who knows?
Visions of Trees, the London duo of Joni Juden and Sara Atalar, are probably best thought of as near relations to the wonderful jj pair--the flower children to jj's gangsta, we might say. That is, Visions of Trees' atmospheric conditions are close to the phantasmagoric--their tunes have a nostalgic affinity with, we like to imagine, Druid societies and small towns with co-ops, where the young go partying with every substances you can think of off the top of your head, lost in the woods.
The cuts below are only a sampling of the groovy, Balearic-leaning duo's best work. For a thorough introduction, one might best start with the title track from their February EP, Sometimes It Kills (Moshi Moshi Records), the body of which is as impressive and perhaps, on a track to track comparison, more pop-oriented than the single.
Don't forget to check out the exuberant video for "Sometimes It Kills," either:
The "No Flag (ANR Remix)" and the unexpected but dead pretty Ariel Pink cover, "She's My Girl" are our particular favorites, the Ariel Pink cover offering a spot-on and meaningful correlate for the group artistically. They, like the lo-fi king they honored, seem to be interested in the intersections of nature, sound, and transcendence. The floating, chilled-out quality of their work is miles away from Pink sonically, but they share an obvious, kindred heart.
As holds true for a group like, say, Keep Shelly in Athens, Visions of Trees can remix with the best of them. To wit, we give you their remix of oOoOO's "Burnout eyess"
For a comprehensive look at their work, check out their Souncloud, visit their Myspace, follow them on Twitter and, for the love of God, someone get some blog love on these folks.
Matthewdavid--the moniker of L.A.'s Matthew David McQueen--has been called, depending on where you look, "lo-fi electronic," or "experimental," or (idiotically) "glo-fi," but none such characterization quite fits, partly because what Matthewdavid deals in couldn't really be labeled a "school" of music. More aptly, he plays with the genre of electronic music, and what it means for an artist to be, at once, electronic and intertextual with the world of music beyond his genre. His recent mix for Altered Zones--which runs the gamut from rap, to jazz, to African cassettes, to indie (Puro Instinct's excellent "Stillyagi," specifically)--exhibits a typically modernist approach to music: He finds a way to bring many genres, ideas, and disparate sounds together to create a fresh whole. He follows the old Pound adage: "Make it new."
Given his inclination towards synthesis, it is maybe unsurprising that Matthewdavid's forthcoming LP, Outmind, is dropping April 18 via Brainfeeder, the label headed by resident genius Flying Lotus, the grand master of synthesizing experimental and avant-garde concepts into listenable, lovable art.
Tracklist
1. Los Angeles is Beautiful
2. Noche Y Dia/ San Raphael
3. Prayers at Bedtime
4. International (ft. Doggie)
5. Group Tea (ft. Flying Lotus)
6. Like You Mean It
7. Epic Swan
8. Floor Music (ft. Niki Randa)
9. Cucumber-Lime
10. Today, Same Way
11. Being Without You
12. No Need to Worry/ Mean Too Much
From Outmind: "Like You Mean It," a cut with a gargantuan punch behind it:
The buzz around Matthewdavid is, pretty much without contest, deserved. His International EP from earlier this year is described (accurately) by Ninja Tune thusly:
A pleasurable pastiche of hazy beats, spectral synth work and saturating textures, International is a deep and dreamy endeavor. From diaphanous vocal samples to the silken strum of a guitar, soft ocean echoes to a laid-back 808, the EP lures the listener into a plush world that teems with sensory treasures. Drums glimmer like a musical mirage, gossamer melodies mingle with scattering beats while smooth waves wash over shuffles of sound.
The video for "International (ft. Doggie)"--a grainy melding of VHS-quality images--can be viewed below:
A smattering of Matthewdavid's work will be evidence enough of the gamut he can run--from sunny but intelligent electronic, to Animal Collective-style inventiveness, he's pretty much soaked up the best of the current music scene and found exciting ways to re-imagine it:
And...before he had quite the buzz he has today, Matthewdavid did some interesting work with Sun Araw, if they're your thing, that you can buy over at Leaving Records. They've put up the "Third Movement from the A-Side" for free download, if you want to dip a toe in first.
Anyway. Matthewdavid: Monitor his Soundcloud, peruse his Myspace--he's going to be big, so remember: it's not that much money, just buy the album.
David Hilali, the Welsh producer also known as Dauwd, is a prime example of artists who are unjustifiably unsigned (edit: he is now signed to Pictures Music). After giving his production an honest listen, those with exacting ears are very likely to shun the hype surrounding the certain undeserved; anyone can make a track, but the rampant pretention with which many artists in the UK scene proceed is completely absent here. The sincerity in the raw emotion of these pieces are at the forefront, and it's reminiscent of artists like Gold Panda who are invested solely in the integrity of their music and their personal connection to it. While this is all conjecture—Dauwd seems to be either shy or taking a Burial-like stance towards his public persona—his character seems to shine through his music.
Update: Dauwd's single 'Could it Be' is forthcoming on Pictures Music. And now that he's "decided to make an effort" and with good reason, follow him on Twitter.
