Demob Happy

You’re Welcome 7.5/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Extra Golden are a combination of Keynan and American musicians who marry political consciousness to a vibrant, funky take on rock informed by the Nairobi-born Benga style. According to the band’s MySpace, the member’s share a belief that “tight quarters = tight grooves”, and [...]

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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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An exact science 8.5/10 In ‘Dear Science’ TV On The Radio have finally delivered on the early promise of their EP ‘Young Liars’ with the dazzling art-rock album they’ve long threatened but somehow neglected to deliver. Although ‘Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes‘ and ‘Return To Cookie Mountain‘ had some great individual songs, overall I found [...]

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Intoxicating Man 9/10 Serge Gainsbourg is criminally underrated outside France. Listening to this comprehensive best of compilation it is evident that there was more to him than the sleazy Gallic rogue that is stereotypically presented in the media. By contrast, ‘Initials SG‘ reveals Gainsbourg to be a restless sonic innovator. While his lackadaisical, half-spoken vocal [...]

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Timeless classic 9/10 Nixon was the record that got me into alt-country, even if it was the Lambchop album that saw the band off on a tangent too far for some fans of the scene. A highly unlikely marriage of Curtis Mayfield-type soul and pedal-steel country twang, it is an album of authentic and timeless [...]

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“… now you see it’s sucking you in!” 8/10 I found James Murphy’s first album a complete turn-off: the studied cool, the nods and winks to oblique musical references, the ‘tongue-in-cheek’ lyrics. LCD Soundsystem has even been described as dance-punk nostalgia for music journalists. The in-jokery and general calculated irony seemed like cold artifice, dispassionate. [...]

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“Hot Chip will break your legs, snap off your head” 8/10 Genre-bending Hot Chip have not only released some of the singles of the year but one of its best albums. As with Gorillaz and Gnarls Barkley recently, mid-way into the ‘noughties’ we are starting to see some real wit and invention in pop music [...]

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The best? 7/10 I am not a massive Talking Heads fan, but I love ‘Remain in Light’ and got this Best-of as well to sample all of their other albums at once. However, I am suspicious that this is not a truely representative selection because the three songs from ‘Remain in Light’ have been so [...]

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Never say never again 7/10 I was a bit wary of this latest album from the New York-based collective due to reports of cheesy female vocals being added into the mix. In fact, this album is a distinct and largely successful departure from the STREET DAD template, stripping away the post-rock inflections in favour of [...]

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Who’s the Daddy? 7/10 Out Hud is a fearlessly imaginative and unusual clash of post-rock, funk, acid, electro and house. Often sounding freeform but nevertheless packed with complexities, each track is an instrumental journey full of stylistic twists and turns – none least ‘L Train Is a Swell Train and I Don’t Want to Hear [...]

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