Demob Happy

Album Review: worriedaboutsatan – Arrivals FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT 8.5/10 Will electronica make a comeback at the end of the decade? It seems that having gone organic in the 00s with folktronica, many electronica artists have been second-guessed recently by folk artists (from Bon Iver to Iron & Wine) augmenting their [...]

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Album Review: Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years 8.5/10 In a recent Pitchfork review Animal Collective declared that it must be “weird to be in a band with good musicians”, referring to the fact that they basically view themselves as electronic collagists than a band in the strict (i.e., formally trained) sense. It is [...]

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Album Review: Crystal Antlers – Tentacles 7/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Among the many acts hyped in 2008 there was a proliferation of new bands called Crystal something. Crystal Castles, Crystal Stilts and Cystal Antlers all came out of the leftfield to get blog love last year. Having been totally confused [...]

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Album Review: Richard Swift – Atlantic Ocean 8/10 Often compared to Harry Nilsson, Richard Swift shares the 60s maverick’s category-avoiding, highly melodic and eccentic brand of pop rock. Swift, who prefers the analogue four track production techniques of the Nilsson era, recorded ‘The Atlantic Ocean’ – his latest for Secretly Canadian – in Wilco’s loft [...]

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Family matters FIRST PUBLISHED AT ALTSOUNDS.COM 7.5/10 The Handsome Family’s (aka Brett & Rennie Sparks) eighth album ‘Honey Moon’ is a collection of love songs “featuring tales of intimate insects and lovers kissing in wet caves”, released to mark their 20th wedding anniversary. Maintaining the gothic Americana Family template of previous albums, ‘Honey Moon’ blends [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Whiter than white 5.5/10 Norwegian producer Erlend Øye could pass as a modern day Arthur Russell. He may not play the violin but he does have the curious distinction of being at once a popular house and electronica artist/DJ and one half of Simon and Garfunkel-esque folk [...]

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Switched on 7/10 Fujiya & Miyagi – also known as the very un-Japanese and un-duo-like David Best, Steve Lewis and Matt Hainsby – are part of a indie/electronica scene, including the likes of Baikonour (aka Jean-Emmanuel Kreiger) and Imitation Electric Piano, that seem to share in Lee Adams a mercenary percussionist. Like Baikonour, Fujiya & [...]

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“What will it take to make you listen?” 8.5/10 Some of my favourite albums of the last couple of years have come from a strand of impressionistic folk that roughly began with the release of Grizzly Bear’s ghostly ‘Yellow House‘ in 2006 and Iron & Wine’s kaleidoscopic ‘Shepherd’s Dog‘ a year later, gathering pace in [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Back to the future 6/10 ‘Your Ear Knows Future’ is the sophomore effort from Baikonour – aka Brighton’s French-born Jean-Emmanuel Kreiger – a veritable one-man band whose debut ‘For the Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos‘ was a heady blend of space rock and electronica. Where that first [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Keep this in mind for your Christmas stockings … 8/10 When it was released earlier this year I resisted ‘Sunday At Devil Dirt’, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan’s well-received, rather tongue-in-cheek take on Americana, their second full-length collaboration. It seemed to me too studied, too contrived somehow, [...]

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