Demob Happy

Re-birth of a Rainbow Nation? 8/10 Based on a novel by South African playwright Athol Fugard, ‘Tsotsi‘ a slickly-produced, powerful drama set in a giant township outside Johannesburg. Presley Chweneyagae stars as the eponymous Tsotsi, a baby-faced assassin forced into surrogate fatherhood by the baby he unwittingly kidnaps during a bungled car jacking. Protecting the [...]

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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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Gnarly debut 7/10 Much of the reviews for St Elsewhere evaulate all the tracks in relation to its mindblowing single ‘Crazy’. While it is probably pertinent to mention that there are no other tracks that reach the sublime level of that song, it may also pertinent to say that Crazy is one of the best [...]

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Monkey business 8.5/10 Demon Days improves massively from the Gorillaz debut with an album chock full of memorable, innovative pop, garnished with effervescent production. If anything, the cartoon imagery (or you could call it marketing) sticks less easily to this album, with moments of folksy downbeat like ‘Every Planet we Reach is Dead’ sounding like [...]

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Not enough Notwist 6/10 13 and God is a seemingly unlikely collaboration between indietronic Munich crew The Notwist and avant-rappers Themselves of the Anticom label. However, if you are expecting to tune into the bittersweet glitch-pop of Notwist’s ‘Neon Golden’ you will be severely dissappointed. If you are familiar with the dense, cerebral mutterings of [...]

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Nu-school electro 7/10 Scott Herron’s Prefuse 73 is a combination of Warp-label glitch and instrumental hip hop that has him adored by IDM merchants and headz alike. It is not nearly as abrasive and uncompromising as some writers would lead you to believe, but rather a heady mash up of new-school electro and (largely instrumental) [...]

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