Peter Broderick is one of those artists who has such a wide range of things he does. At times his music is reminiscent of the more ambient aspects of Aphex Twin; at other times he has kind of a weird version of a Ben Folds vibe going.
Tag: review
I’ve first heard of Sea Oleena when my mates from Lizard Kisses told me she was going to participate on their latest EP, Tiny Island Teeth, which I released on Cakes and Tapes late last year. Since I heard that one song, I instantly went and downloaded her latest album, Sleeplessness, which got me hooked for weeks. Her name caught my eye again when reading the press release relative to this album, and I knew I had to take a listen to it.
Holobody is a duo comprised of Oleena and her brother (which goes by the moniker of Felix Green). One can read the words “gospel, "hip-hop”, “electronica” and “folk” in the first sentence of the album description. Beware. Such a melting pot of genres may put off anyone who isn’t exactly looking for the future of music in the non-form of a batch of mp3s AND got tired of 96% of all music tagged “experimental” on the internets. That would be me, but strangely enough I found Riverhood’s opening track, “Unfold”, to be quite entertaining – sounds like something Why? could have done – and decided not to close the tab on which I was streaming it right away.
After listening to her solo stuff, it may seem a bit strange to hear Sea Oleena rapping – but then again, she never sounded conventional at all. On “Hurricane Season” she shares singing/rapping duties with her bro Green above a sea (pun not intended) of bleeps, bloops and samples; “Riverbed” is the highlight in the first half of the record, with Oleena’s whispered vocals providing a warm atmosphere. One of my few personal complaints about Riverhood as a whole is how the constant shift from quiet and ethereal to beat-infested schizophrenia puts me off from listening to it from start to finish without skipping a track or changing the tracklist around; fortunately enough, “Down to the River to Pray” kicked in near the end of the album – here’s the gospel! And it makes me want to praise the Lord or something. That’s what I wrote on a review of Spiritualized’s Sweet Heart, Sweet Light that I never finished and that’s what I’m going to say everytime I hear the words “Lord”, “Jesus” or “God” on a good song. But this time I think I saw the light somewhere during this jam’s coda.
<a href=“http://holobody.bandcamp.com/album/riverhood” data-mce-href=“http://holobody.bandcamp.com/album/riverhood”>Riverhood by Holobody</a>
DSS
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The Magnetic Fields, Sala Apolo
I saw The Magnetic Fields on Sunday night and I can’t possibly begin to be even remotely objective about the concert (suffice to say I’m a fan). So um, in summary, it was brilliant, perfect, magical etc etc and a lot of people cried.
If you don’t believe me just watch this video I shot of “The Book Of Love”.
SAJB
I’ve been hearing quite a bit about Willis Earl Beal lately. About his former homelessness and his relationship with his grandmother. About how he used to leave CDs in random public places and give out flyers that said “I like oatmeal, train stations, night-time and chamomile tea. Call me.”. About his “years of toiling in obscurity” (though he’s only 27), making music while working the night shift as a hotel porter. And among the few things white hipsters can totally get behind, a formely-homeless black guy who wears Bukowski T-shirts and makes music using discarded instruments found at flea markets is definitely one of them. These biograpic details are the stuff legends are made of. And his lo-fi sound, reminiscent of 90s indie rock bands but, unlike those bands, definitely un-middleclass, only reinforces his “authenticity”.
What’s surprising is that, regardless of the hype, his songs are actually good. While listening to the whole album (Acousmatic Sorcery) might tire a little – variety is not one of Beal’s strengths and the songs are not exactly what you’d call catchy – there are enough interesting things going on to make it worth your time. Sambo Joe From the Rainbow and Monotony are highlights. And if you have a thing for album closers, as I do, bonus track Masquerade is as good as they come.The song’s strongest asset, apart from Beal’s skin-crawling voice, is the monotonous catchy-yet-subtly-unnerving whistling that never quite lets you become comfortable with the song – a warning to always be on your guard*. Have a listen.
*I may not be the only one finding myself wanting to yell “Yo, Omar’s coming, YO!”
EAK
Last summer I gave you my heart, but the very next season, you gave it away
Screw that tentative of a pun on the opening line, it’s not even remotely funny. Like this record. One of my favorite bands from the always thriving French depressive but not depressing music scene has put out their 3rd album earlier in the year, but the only thing that made me sad about it is that I only got around to listen to it properly by now. Probably because I’m not really a melancholic person, though: I just seem to enjoy gloomy stuff in order not to be so happy and be able to fit in my circle of urban depressive, The National-worshipper friends.
But this isn’t a post about me; I’m talking about The Missing Season, a duo comprised of songwriters Nicolas Gautier and Marin Pérot who, like me (and this was the last time I mentioned myself in this post), probably spent countless hours of their lives listening to Dakota Suite, Low, Codeine or Red House Painters and getting to know them so well that they managed to craft a sound so close, yet so distinctive from each of those bands, rejecting the whole (unfortunately well spread) idea of cloning. On “Could It Be”, one of the highlights here, Gautier and Pérot teach you how to use a synth with great success in a band whose fanbase probably doesn’t like synthesizers at all and that fact alone is enough for me to praise this album. But by the ending part of the album, “Mystic Candle”, which seems to be some sort of hopeless, farewell song, reveals itself as possibly the best this duo has ever done.
Even though the whole of The Last Summer is not consistently as great as those two standout songs, it’s still worth taking a listen and paying a couple of bucks for the digital download (although you can get it for free on their Bandcamp page embedded below). I can’t name five slowcore albums as good as this one being put out in the latest couple of years. But give me five more like this, and it’s 1995 again.
DSS
<a href=“http://themissingseason.bandcamp.com/album/the-last-summer” data-mce-href=“http://themissingseason.bandcamp.com/album/the-last-summer”>The Last Summer by The Missing Season</a>