Album Review: A Winged Victory For The Sullen - A Winged Victory For The Sullen (Uncut)

4/5
Piano minimalism meets orchestral ambience

It’s been a prolific year for former Devics man, Dustin O’Halloran, with a studio album, live album and film soundtrack to his name. Now he pairs up with Stars Of The Lid’s Adam Wiltzie for seven elegiac tracks of almost oppressive beauty. Like labelmate Ólafur Arnalds or Jóhann Jóhannsson, the duo prioritise atmospheric soundscapes, but features like O’Halloran’s poignant piano melody, immersed within slow moving strings and drifting guitar textures on ‘We Played Some Open Chords’, set this project apart, while the twelve minute ‘A Symphony Pathetique’ is unapologetically moving. Another triumph for the post-classical scene.

Album Review: A Winged Victory For The Sullen - A Winged Victory For The Sullen (Uncut)

Album Review: Archers Of Loaf - Icky Mettle (Uncut)

4/5
Chapel Hill’s cult college rockers revisited

Despite the preposterous name, Eric Bachmann’s quartet were, for a short time, close to mainstream acceptance as US indie rock looked set to take over the world. Their 1993 debut, remastered by Bob Weston, treads similar ground to Crooked Rain-era Pavement - if less self-consciously clever - with dissonant, spiky guitars piercing surprisingly melodic college radio favourites like ‘Web In Front’ and ‘Wrong’. Bachmann’s Jagger-esque drawl perfectly matches the slacker-punk vibe of absurd, crowd-participation favourite ‘Toast’ - “There’s something wrong with my toast!” – and bonus tracks include the atonal fury of ‘Audiowhore’ (from the Greatest Of All Time EP).

Album Review: Archers Of Loaf - Icky Mettle (Uncut)

Album Review: Googoosh - Googoosh (Uncut)

3/5
Rare Persian pop from ‘Iran’s Daughter’

Actress and singer Faegheh Atashin aka Googoosh was an Iranian heroine silenced by the 1979 revolution until her emigration to the US in 2000. This enlightening collection of lesser-known songs recorded in the 1970s reveals a pre-Khomeini world of Persian traditions and western influences – in 1971 she even recorded in French. The passionate, string-laden lament of ‘Digeh Geryeh Delo Va Nemikoneh’, the sultry, disco-inflected charms of ‘Talagh’ and the Middle Eastern chanson of ‘Mano Gonjishkaye Khooneh’ may be an acquired taste for indie-trained ears, but no one can deny the potent romance of Googoosh’s voice.

Album Review: Googoosh - Googoosh (Uncut)

Album Review: Various Artists - True Soul Volumes 1&2 (Uncut)

3/5
Crate-digging heaven for soul funk fans

While its most famous son Bill Clinton was busy not inhaling, Arkansas’ True Soul label – run by record store owner Lee Anthony – was documenting the thriving local soul and funk scene. Though its output rarely troubled the charts, these 32 tracks, compiled by Stones Throw label manager Eothen Alapatt, are packed with an abundance of righteous grooves and crazily titled gems, especially the pysch-funk of York Wilson’s ‘Psychedelic Hot Pants’. Memphis may have hogged the spotlight, but John Craig’s effortless ‘Doing My Own Thing’ and the laidback shuffle of Thomas East’s ‘Funky Music’ prove Little Rock had a big heart.

Album Review: Various Artists - True Soul Volumes 1&2 (Uncut)

Album Review: Felt - Bubblegum Perfume (Uncut)

4/5
Collector’s compilation of cult band’s Creation albums

The kind of band beloved by 80s indie fans who considered The Smiths too mainstream, Felt’s ten albums combined Lawrence (no surname)’s erudite lyrics and Tom Verlaine intonations with ornate instrumentation, often provided by keyboardist Martin Duffy (now of Primal Scream). This 1990 compilation of their time on Creation boasts a revised tracklisting, but highlights the fragile beauty of ‘Be Still’ (from the ‘Space Blues’ EP), the instrumental cocktail jazz of ‘Book Of Swords’ (from ‘Train Above The City’, for which Laurence only named songs) and 86’s breathless, claustrophobic but joyous ‘Ballad Of The Band’ 7”.

Album Review: Felt - Bubblegum Perfume (Uncut)

Album Review: Digitalism - I Love You, Dude (Uncut)

3/5
Hamburg duo get nostalgic for the 90s

Like Delphic, Jens Moelle and Ismail ‘Isi’ Tuefekci share a love for late twentieth century ecstasy-fuelled euphoria, and their second album sounds at times like the Mancunian quartets’ update of New Order, especially on ‘2 Hearts’ and the Julian Casablancas collaboration, ‘Forrest Gump’. Elsewhere, the Kitsuné endorsed duo lean heavily on The Prodigy for ‘Reeperbahn’ and The KLF for ‘Antibiotics’, while the low-slung crunch of ‘Miami Showdown’ gives Jan Hammer a Chemical Brothers rubdown. It’s far from original, but nonetheless highly effective, and the sweaty, lad-friendly nature of the title betrays its inherent good humour.

Album Review: Digitalism - I Love You, Dude (Uncut)

Album Review: Gonzales - The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales (Uncut)

4/5
The musical prankster goes symphonic

Amidst a flurry of one-liners – one track is titled ‘Shut Up And Play The Piano’ – Gonzales relocates his rhymes to an orchestral setting for his ninth album. What could be a novelty record is transformed into a deeply satisfying and intelligent experiment thanks to the Canadian’s charm, with ‘Self Portrait’ riffing on Dorian Gray references and ‘Rap Race’ a confessional look at his motivation. Frequently self-referential and flippant, he skewers hip hop’s excesses – “No, I haven’t said the ‘n’ word yet” – against a melodramatic backdrop composed by his brother Christophe Beck, albeit more in the style of Danny Elfman than Gustav Mahler.

Album Review: Gonzales - The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales (Uncut)

Album Review: Toby Burke - Mexico City (Uncut)

4/5
Horse Stories main man strikes Aztec gold

Now resident in LA after a spell in London, restless Australian Burke’s latest was recorded in one week in a Mexico City apartment. With little more than piano and guitar, its nine songs echo the sparsest acoustics of Springsteen’s Nebraska, Burke’s voice delicate and world-weary, his mood subdued but never defeated. ‘Cantina Crawl’ is an elegiac lament for characters “who smoked like a borrowed car”, and the album is populated by itinerants for whom “home is no place to go”. ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You’, its forlorn piano superseded by decaying, distorted guitar, is the exquisite highlight.

Album Review: Toby Burke - Mexico City (Uncut)

Album Review: Gus Gus - Arabian Horse (Uncut)

3/5
Immaculately produced techno soul from Icelandic veterans

Fourteen years on from their 4AD debut, GusGus have completed the transition from arthouse electronica to suave techno soulsters, their streamlining from unwieldy 12 piece to trio paying dividends in increasingly explicit club friendly gestures. They remain unafraid of the occasional sleight of hand, however, as the unexpected Balkan polka conclusion to Selfoss proves, and, elsewhere, Eastern themes underlined by the title bleed through an hour of largely euphoric, lushly textured but sometimes interchangeable grooves. ‘Within You’, featuring Hjaltalin’s Hogni Elisson, is more contemplative, but it’s the nostalgic, reverb-heavy house of ‘Over’ that’s most appealing.

Album Review: Gus Gus - Arabian Horse (Uncut)

Album Review: Adventure - Lesser Known (Uncut)

3/5
Dan Deacon protégé trawls synthpop classics

Benny Boeldt was only three when the ‘80s ended but seems to have lived there since. His second album adds vocals to flesh out earlier ‘chiptunes’, its first half ransacking the racks in a Panda Pop-fuelled fashion: ‘Fool’s Paradise’ recalls Technique-era New Order, ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ joins The Human League, while ‘Feels Like Heaven’ could be a remix from OMD’s Junk Culture. Its garish roots are occasionally too obvious, but the album’s later tracks are darker: ‘Rio’ throws in a little M83 grit, while album closers ‘Another World’ and ‘Meadows’ offer a more expansive, psychedelic twist on his sound.

Album Review: Adventure - Lesser Known (Uncut)

Album Review: Eat Lights; Become Lights - Autopia (Uncut)

3/5
Impressive kosmische debut from London three piece

Given their acknowledged debt to krautrock – their second 7” was called ‘Klustered’ and they’ve toured with Silver Apples – it’s perhaps unfair to expect new tricks from these strangely monikered revivalists. Fortunately their debut’s mixture of motorik rhythms, droning guitars and swirling electronics is exciting enough, with ‘Dark Matter’’s especially fierce assault recalling both Trans Am and Sheffield’s underrated Plone. Debut single ‘They Transmit’ and the unimaginatively titled ‘Musik For Motorways’ showcase a gentler side, but the towering, ten minute ‘All Aboard’, complete with sci-fi spoken word samples, proves that hackneyed constituent parts never prevent them from taking off.

Album Review: Eat Lights; Become Lights - Autopia (Uncut)

Album Review: Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (Uncut)

4/5
Third album of wordless vocal acrobatics

Recalling the extraordinary power of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, albeit free of dissonant throatsinging, Brooklyn resident Barwick loops her voice intricately to create a masterpiece of largely instrument-free choral ambience. Its devotional leanings are inspired by a cappella hymns she sang during her Louisiana childhood, but though its meditative spirituality hints at New Age tendencies, the additional percussion that cuts through the layered harmonies of ‘Prizewinning’ could provide a rude awakening. There’s also a naïve wonder evident that recalls the bewitching power of Sigur Ros, and the piano that weaves out of closer ‘Flown’ would make Harold Budd proud.

Album Review: Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (Uncut)

Album Review: Various Artists - The Art Of The 12” (Uncut)

4/5
ZTT helped refine the concept of the ‘extended remix’, and this double CD offers rarities like Art of Noise’s ‘Moments in Love (Beaten)’ and unreleased material including an impressive Hibakush-ah! mix of Frankie’s ‘Two Tribes’. The more playfully indulgent experimentalism at the label’s heart is also in evidence, plus mixes for lesser-knowns like Andrew Poppy and Act, Claudia Brücken’s post-Propaganda outfit.

Album Review: Various Artists - The Art Of The 12” (Uncut)

Album Review: Dustin O'Halloran - Lumiere (Uncut)

4/5
Devics member and Neo-classical pianist expands his palette

After two albums of solo piano work and contributions to Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette soundtrack, Berlin-based American O’Halloran here bulks out his compositions, assisted by New York’s contemporary classicists (and Grizzly Bear collaborators) ACME Ensemble. Peter Broderick is also on hand, while fellow classical revivalists Jóhann Jóhannsson and Nils Frahm help out on mixing and engineering duty respectively. Melancholic piano melodies remain the focus – ‘Opus 44’ is another solo work – but imaginative chamber arrangements and deft electronic flourishes on pieces like ‘A Great Divide’ and ‘Fragile No. 4’ lend extra gravitas and a refined, sophisticated allure.

Album Review: Dustin O'Halloran - Lumiere (Uncut)

Album Review: East River Pipe - We Live In Rented Rooms (Uncut)

4/5
More classic bedroom sadness from New Jersey recluse

Formerly homeless, and still working at his local Home Depot, F.M. Cornog has spent eighteen years painstakingly crafting intimate tales of life’s losers, his small but devoted following including David Byrne and Kurt Wagner, both of whom have covered songs. His seventh album sees few stylistic changes, with ‘Backroom Deals’ and ‘The Flames Are Coming Back’ offering typically diaphanous arrangements of shimmering guitars around Cornog’s world-weary yet optimistic vocals. But ‘Tommy Made A Movie’, about a porno-fixated wannabe director, adds splashes of 1980s synth, while ‘When You Were Doing Cocaine’ sounds like an unusually candid Jimmy Webb.

Album Review: East River Pipe - We Live In Rented Rooms (Uncut)

Album Review: Belong - Common Era (Uncut)

3/5
Ambient shoegaze from The Big Easy

Five years on, New Orleans’ Turk Dietrich and Michael Jones return with nine rather more conventionally structured songs than the nebulous, shapeshifting drones of their debut, October Language. The addition of a drum machine and vocals wafting in from another galaxy only emphasises their debt to dreamy shoegazers like Slowdive, while their relentlessly washed out backing exhibits an intense familiarity with Kevin Shields’ glide guitar technique. But there’s a genuine, still beauty to tracks like ‘Perfect Life’, which sounds like an early but anaesthetised Cure, and plenty elsewhere for Flying Saucer Attack and Labradford fans.

Album Review: Belong - Common Era (Uncut)

Album Review: Codes In The Clouds - As The Spirit Wanes (Uncut)

3/5
Dramatic instrumentals from Dartford

Though novelty’s in short supply on this quintet’s second album, intensity and commitment are not. Mining the same seam of cinematic post-rock as Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky, they specialise in delicate guitar-focussed passages that bloom and explode with a primitive, dramatic beauty. Recorded in only five days, much of it displays a welcome sense of urgency as well as a lack of pomp, with ‘Look Back, Look Up’ as close as the genre gets to pop. Perhaps due to its mastering by labelmate and pianist Nils Frahm, there’s also a gratifying eye for detail in their arrangements.

Album Review: Codes In The Clouds - As The Spirit Wanes (Uncut)

Album Review: Beat Milk Jugs - 10 Years Of Hangovers (Uncut)

3/5
Preposterously named electronic indie from Latvia

Originally from Daugavpils but now based in the UK, Beat Milk Jugs have travelled equally far into the past for musical inspiration. ‘Dvina’ opens with a ghostly Russian voice, but it’s soon lost amidst fierce ‘Firestarter’ programmed drums, while ‘Not My Day’ finds common ground between New Order and Ride, lazy Bernard Sumner-esque vocals drawled over an increasingly tense bed of shiny guitars. ‘7th Street’ offers raw guitars and a bizarre vocal sample concerning sausages, and elsewhere hints of Underworld, Nine Inch Nails and, oddly, Fourtet can be found within this unsophisticated but often pleasingly ferocious malevolence.

Album Review: Beat Milk Jugs - 10 Years Of Hangovers (Uncut)

Album Review: Francesco Tristano - Idiosynkrasia (Uncut)

3/5
Luxembourgian brings the piano into the 21st Century

This unlikely collaboration finds Detroit’s legendary Carl Craig producing Juillard-trained pianist Tristano for a groundbreaking hour of rewired techno, house and classical music. Like a less abstract Murcof – who produced Tristano’s debut – the results blur boundaries between acoustic and electronic sounds, Craig treating Tristano’s grand then sending it shimmering over layers of percussion and effects. So “Mambo” builds to a stormy climax from a bass line stabbed out on a Hauschka-like muted piano amidst minimalist electronica, while “Idiosynkrasia” eagerly eyes the dancefloor. But it’s the hypnotic 11-minute “Hello – Inner Space Dub” that flies furthest.

Album Review: Francesco Tristano - Idiosynkrasia (Uncut)

Album Review: Yann Tiersen - Dust Lane (Uncut)

3/5
French soundtrack composer returns to his rock roots

Though best known in Britain for his Amelie soundtrack, Yann Tiersen’s music is far more elaborate and Dust Lane, his first for Mute, leans on sounds of his youth like The Birthday Party and Nirvana. Opener ‘Amy’ wrongfoots with both its name and peaceful introduction, but the extravagantly epic arrangements that follow – produced by Ken Thomas (M83, Sigur Ros) – are far more indicative of Tiersen’s current muse. ‘Fuck Me’, with vocalist Gaelle Kerrien’s breathy vocals entreating us to “Make me come again”, is paradoxically the most tender track here, while the dramatic, elaborately arranged ‘Palestine’ is breathlessly fierce.

Album Review: Yann Tiersen - Dust Lane (Uncut)