Demob Happy

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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Better the devil you know 8/10 If ‘Neon Golden‘ was The Notwist in a state of evolution, leaving their hardcore punk roots behind in favour of post-rock flavoured indie-pop and electronica, ‘You, The Devil + Me‘ is the sound of a band who have found their, er, sound. ‘You, The Devil + Me‘ may lack [...]

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Me and my new Merz albun 7/10 Merz’s singular vocals – pitched somewhere between Bob Dylan and Horace Andy (to my ears anyway) – first surfaced in 1999 with his eponymous debut album and a couple of memorable singles that got a lot of airplay on Radio One and the likes. A mix of (sometimes [...]

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Geek chic 7/10 If like I did you heard ‘Coming On Strong‘ after their second, break-through album ‘The Warning‘, you might be wondering where the big tunes are. There is nothing as stand-out here as 2006′s stunning double-wammy of singles ‘Boy From School’ and ‘Over and Over’. Nevertheless, ‘Coming on Strong‘ sets the template for [...]

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Melody days from the artist formerly known as Manitoba 8/10 It took me a long time to get over how mediocre Caribou’s last album ‘The Milk of Human Kindness‘ was. After the psychedelic onslaught of ‘Up in Flames‘ (recorded under previous moniker ‘Manitoba’), his sophomore record was an exercise in plodding 60s-infused futility. I tried [...]

Irene - Caribou [ 3:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Radiohead and the art of modern marketing 10/10 How much is music worth? Not the CD it’s printed on or the cover art, and certainly not the plastic jewel case – but the music itself? Or more precisely, how much is Radiohead‘s music worth? This is the question the band have asked fans to contemplate [...]

Radiohead [ 3:57 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Lost classic but will they make another? 8/10 I would be tempted to describe this album as a ‘lost classic’ since it started as a minor independent release by two college roommates in 2003 and has steadily developed a cult following. People will continue to look back to this album while one half of Department [...]

Dept of Eagles - The Horse you ride [ 4:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Without Walls 8/10 Despite his reputation as arch studio boffin, producer Sascha Ring – aka Apparat – makes unapologetically beautiful music. Unlike some of his IDM peers, Ring is not interested so much in abrasion or near-mathematical deconstruction, but with music that swells and soars with classical grandeur. Among current producers, he bears a resemblance [...]

Apparat - Headup [ 5:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Feast of fun 9/10 Calexico’s sound inhabits the frontier badlands of the American Southwest, a cinematic multi-instumental brew that takes in jazz, alt-country, Mariachi, folk and electronics. It’s a widescreen affair, a mixture of traditional rootsy Americana (‘Quattro’) and brooding instrumental mood pieces (‘Pepita’, ‘Across The Wire’) that evoke rust and dust choked border towns. [...]

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Hail Radiohead! 8/10 It can take a few years to properly appraise an album by a band as great as Radiohead. It is important to shake off the initial impressions – distorted as they are by the weight of expectation – and allow the album time to grow on you. A band that has so [...]

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