Brand new Lo-Fi-Fnk track and video! Loving the slightly more experimental direction and the darker tones: basically, when they mention in here that they want to "keep the summer high", that wish now sounds more like a desperate call than anything else. In the meantime, the dreamy and nostalgic vibes of the song totally suit its topic, with the minimal chorus repeatedly going "oh I'm sleepless" over icy synths and echoed samples that seem to come from a happier place that is now far away. Hopefully a new album by these two Swedes is on the rocks for very soon!
And out of nowhere comes a new Rihanna dance-track all set-up with a proper video, the first to come out of her next studio album Loud. After all the darkness that (brilliantly) defined Rated-R this is probably what the fans have been waiting for: dance beats, vocoders and a whole lot of sexiness and fun thrown in the mix. Very fun and upbeat, a sort of electropop that kinda reminds me of La Roux. It has smash written all over it. Welcome back Ri!
Once in a while and from out of nowhere, comes a new unknown musician putting into sounds his most private thoughts and life experiences, like opening a book of secrets and sharing it to the world. For me the paradigm of this attitude is still the wonderfully beautiful experience released in 2004 that was Handwriting, by a then-17-year-old-boy who named himself Khonnor. But this debut album by Perfume Genius (a.k.a. Mike Hadreas) is special enough in itself, deserving to be added to this canon. Learning has all the attributes associated with the most personal sort of music that can be put into record: delicate, fragile and with scarce ingredients. There's actually not much more in here than a trembling voice that seems more whispered than anything else, over gorgeous piano arpeggios and few other instruments, making these 10 tracks seem like little impressionist paintings. With this minimal musical approach, Mike exorcises his demons, and while dealing with sex, death, loss and heartbreaks, he reveals his traumatic past experiences in a way that seems almost like self-therapy. And to be honest, his life has already had enough drama, as exemplified by a relationship experience with an older man described in Mr. Peterson: "he made me a tape of Joy Division/ he told me there was part of him missing/ when I was 16/ he jumped off a building”. All of this could be too much to bear, if it wasn't for a simple fact that allows us enough space to breathe: Mike makes it sure to find some beauty around him. And that is a life lesson (8/10)
