Demob Happy

“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 French windows 4/10 In 1994 a law was introduced in France by then culture minister Jacques Toubon protecting the French language. One of the outcomes of this globalisation-resisting move was that two out of five songs on French radio must be sung in la langue maternelle . [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Voice of The Hive 7/10 A sombre flute, the clunking toll of a bell, a solemnly plucked acoustic guitar … cue medieval clichés: misty moats, drawbridges, hooded monks, damsels in distress. But hold on, it’s not Led Zeppelin IV … a shimmering drone, Mellotron, and suddenly all [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Exile on ’25th Street’ 8.5/10 ‘NYC‘ is Kieran Hebden’s (aka Four Tet) fourth collaboration with veteran jazz drummer Steve Reid and while I won’t pretend that I have heard the other three, the word in the blogosphere is that this is the most equal of their partnerships, [...]

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Gang Gang goes bang 8.5/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Long-time darlings of New York’s ultra-hip, art-conscious underground music scene, Gang Gang Dance look braced to make a wider breakthrough with their new album ‘Saint Dymphna‘, released in the UK on Warp. Like their contemporaries Out Hud, Gang Gang Dance makes a [...]

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Second poor album in a row for once-great psych rockers 6.5/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT ‘Snowflake Midnight‘ is a departure from previous Mercury Rev records in that it is almost entirely dominated by electronics and glacial synths. A digital wonderland as sonically rich as Flaming Lips’ ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots‘, [...]

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High and mighty 6.5/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Chicago post-rockers Pit er Pat’s latest for Thrill Jockey was largely recorded live in the studio, with raw production embellished by an arsenal of exotic instruments including a bobo balaphone (!), Burmese temple gong and a vibraslap – to cite a few favourites [...]

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Quite interesting, incidentally … 6/10 I have been a keen advoate of all things Damon Albarn post-Graham Coxon (i.e., Blur’s ‘Think Tank‘ and beyond) so was understandably quite excited by the album release of ‘Monkey, Journey to the West‘. I had not seen the Chinese opera-spectacular which this album scores but I didn’t let that [...]

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Beach boys in a blender! 8/10 I’m probably the last blogger alive to post a review of Panda Bear’s 2007 indie favourite ‘Person Pitch‘ so I’ll try to keep this relatively brief. It featured on the end of year lists of many music magazines and blogs and having resisted it for over a year I [...]

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