Demob Happy

FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT At some point over the last decade David Holmes’ brand of retro mishmashery seemed to fade from the zeitgeist despite the fact that the Northern Irish producer was reaching a wider audience (and no doubt keeping his bank manager happy) with soundtrack work. His turn to the [...]

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Beak>- Beak> 6.5/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Subterranean bass throbs, some cod-ghostly wailing and vaguely arabesque improvisations on a rusty sounding organ … ’Backwell’ is the opener of the self-titled debut album by Beak>, a new band including Portishead’s Geoff Barrow. With its slighty nauseating retro synths fanning out mechanically over chugging [...]

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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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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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“Will it just be like they’re dreaming?” 9/10 It’s definitely a funny time of year to be reviewing what could likely be the best album of 2009, especially one with such sunshine-drenched atmospherics, but Animal Collective may just have rescued us from the seasonally adjusted black hole that is January. Subject to pre-release hype not [...]

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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 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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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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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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