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: Brian Eno & Rick Holland - Drums Between The Bells (BBC Music)

Two albums from Brian Eno in less than a year, and still the man proves he's got more ideas per release than U2 and Coldplay, the stadium acts that presumably pay for his buzzcuts, have had in their entire careers. Combined.

"Drums… operates within the realms of electronica, ambience and spoken word, full of the kind of subtle studio trickery that has made Eno such an intriguing personality."

The BBC prints more words like that here...

Album Review: Brian Eno & Rick Holland - Drums Between The Bells (BBC Music)

Feature: We Dream On Cardboard - Staff Benda Bilili's Rise From The Streets (The Quietus)

When I first heard Staff Benda Bilili, I was so inspired that I actually considered flying to the Democratic Republic Of Congo, their home - if you can call the grounds of capital city Kinshasa's zoo a home. These formerly homeless, disabled musicians have since gone on to seduce people all over the world, while I haven't travelled further than Norway all year.

But the release of Benda Bilili!, a documentary about their last five years, was a great excuse to write about the band without risking my life in the world's most dangerous country."'I’m working for our children’s future,' Ricky explains. 'If I die, what will I be leaving them? A sewing machine. They won’t have anything, not even a roof over their heads. With the music I’ve composed, it’s different. If it’s successful in Europe, it’ll bring in money every year. My kids will be saved."' Mumford & Sons they are not. Find out why here.

Feature: We Dream On Cardboard - Staff Benda Bilili's Rise From The Streets (The Quietus)

Album Review: Gonzales - The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales (BBC Music)

He just keeps getting better, and having confounded people with the brilliance of his live two-pianos-and-two-drumkits performances in 2010, he's back with an orchestral rap album that he believes is the world's first. Is it any good? Well, since you ask, "where most rappers would need to reach for their sampler, Gonzales most likely sat down with his brother to hatch the plan over a bag of weed. It certainly sounds that effortless."

There's more on the subject here...

Album Review: Gonzales - The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales (BBC Music)

Album Review: Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver (The Quietus)

It took me a very long time to get to grips with the appeal of Bon Iver's first album, but I got there in the end, and this new one opens up whole new horizons for Justin Vernon, even if it then closes them down lyrically. "Not for Coldplay the lines "doubled in the toes annex it, it minute closed in the morning did not lose it in the stack's stow, imma lay that call back on ya", sung back to them by a mass crowd waving lighters in the air."

Read my review for The Quietus here.

Album Review: Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver (The Quietus)

Album Review: Planningtorock - W (BBC Music)

It's time for something brooding: the latest Planningtorock album for the rather splendid DFA label. "Rostron imagines a darkly melodramatic world of shadows and sleek metallic edges, her electronic setting industrial and semi-gothic in a similar fashion to current critical faves EMA and Zola Jesus." Read all about it here.

Album Review: Planningtorock - W (BBC Music)

Feature: How The Music Industry Is Killing Music And Blaming The Fans (The Quietus)

Years spent working with musicians, labels, publishers and other sundry music industry types have allowed me to see how changing listening habits have affected not only the business' bottom lines but also made it harder and harder for new musicians to be heard, even though we live in a time when music has never been more accessible. The resulting feature became The Quietus' biggest article to date, shared on Facebook thousands of times and inspiring passionate arguments across the board.

Not everyone agreed with the scenario I presented - "Though democracy won't allow for musicians to be gagged, it can still price them out of the market" - but at the very least it got people talking about issues which I consider very important. You can join in the debate here.

Feature: How The Music Industry Is Killing Music And Blaming The Fans (The Quietus)

Feature: Pure Magic - Julianna Barwick Interviewed (The Quietus)

Sometimes it's necessary to slow things down and enter a world of quiet contemplation. Thank Lousiana for giving us Julianna Barwick, then, who introduces us, perhaps accidentally, to the middle ground between Enya and and Eno. "When something is sad and beautiful at the same time," she says, "it just kills me. It always has. I love that sound." And so do I.

Lie back and let Julianna Hardwick tell you about The Magic Place here.

Feature: Pure Magic - Julianna Barwick Interviewed (The Quietus)

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)