I'll never grow tired of saying how much I love Hidden and its radicalism. Fusing so many disparate worlds (pop vs erudite, industrial vs tribal, beauty vs scariness) in such an ambitious and coherent piece of work, it's slowly becoming one of my favourite albums, well, ever. Hologram is a small piece of that big puzzle built this year by These New Puritans, and it now gets a simple and quite effective video treatment which is definitely worth watching. And on a side note: really happy that I'll be seeing these guys in concert soon!
On their fourth album, Deerhunter seem like finally reaching what could be considered their sonic adulthood, with a collection of extremely well-crafted indie songs and a more mature and quiet sound. So what do they now that they have grown up? Well, basically what all good adults should do: look back to those good old days and make a record filled with sweet and warm nostalgia. Gone are the cathartic feedback and reverb explosions, now all that matters are the songs themselves - and damm-perfect songs they are, evoking past sentiments with a surprising sense of positivism, something not quite common with these guys before. And in the meantime, the more extreme experimentation of previous records is now replaced by a new-found sense of classicism and formality. Who knew that Deerhunter would give new meanings to the idea of languid adulthood and be so good at it? (7,5/10)
The Body Talk operation may still haven't reached its end, with the 3rd and final part scheduled to come out in a few weeks, but I guess we can all agree on something already: risky as it may have been, the decision to launch three different mini-albums in the space of just a few months is already a full-bloom success. With it, Robyn has managed to stay on the radar for most of the year, each release analysed through many different angles, while keeping everyone waiting with anticipation for the next one. Of course none of this would be possible if the music didn't live up to the expectations, but so far so good. After Part 1 marked her return into the pop world, experimenting with different styles, Part 2 is now a more relaxed and loose affair, turning its full attention into the dancefloor, with an updated take of electro-house, all upbeat and fierce - save one last acoustic number. Being Robyn one of the most idiosyncratic pop stars out there, you know the rest: it's always a pleasure to take part of an overwhelming journey into her very-own world. (8/10)
One cannot accuse Hurts of being impatient or wanting to rush things up. After all, it took more than one year between the hype began and their debut album's launch. But the least that can be said now is that the wait was more than worth it. During this year, Hurts have managed to slowly create an impossibly elegant universe around them, full of eighties references, germanic influences and impeccable haircuts and suits. That universe now goes full-bloom in Happiness, a collection of 11 songs with faultless melodies, overtly-melodramatic atmospheres and enigmatic stories. United by an intelligent concept of operatic and artificial drama, together with a larger-than-life approach towards the many sentiments that pop music can achieve in one single song, this is a sure indicator that the future bolds really well for this unique and ambitious duo. (8/10)
I first heard this track when he gave that surprise performance at this year’s VMAs. And it sounded incredible. This new sound of his takes the 808s & Heartbreak experience a few notches up and proves that Kanye West is, indeed, one of the most interesting and risk-taking artists at the moment. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the album and watch his short-film/video for this track. Yes, he portraits himself as a bit of a larger than life character but it all comes down to this: West is one of the most inspirational musicians recording at the moment. I’ll follow this next release very closely.
With all the delays and news that their label made them re-record it all over again, Klaxons sophomore album was supposed to be a big failure. Even more if you think that they were the purveyors of a once-hip-genre (nu-rave) that didn't stay hip for so long and ended up being more of a joke than anything else. Well, the good news is that Surfing The Void is not the disaster it was meant to be, actually on the contrary. It's true that now the songs are buried in a wall of noise that almost suffocates them, but underneath all the heavy sounds (courtesy of producer Ross Robinson, hum, "The Godfather of Nu-Metal") they still exist and are more than recommended. And in fact, that dense atmosphere seems brave enough to give their trademark mysticism a whole new look and feel. Almost as good as that cute LOL-cat on the cover. (8/10)
More than one year into being the hippest movement with the coolest bands, it was only inevitable that chillwave, as a music genre, would soon start seeing its first variations / deviations. Hypnagogic pop is one of them, and while keeping those trademark lo-fi production values intact, along with the dreamy and nostalgic vibes that pretty much define chillwave, there's also a much darker atmosphere that is not so common in projects like Memory Tapes, Neon Indian or Toro Y Moi but can easily be found in Salem. Menacing would actually be a good word to describe what's heard in King Night, in a way that sort of brings into mind those first dubstep records some years ago, before dubstep started moving into lighter territories. But that's actually only the beginning. In a nutshell, there's some truly intense creepy-goth-blissful-hollowed-out beauty out there. (8/10)
It's becoming more and more clear that this album will turn out to be one of my main A/W 2010 soundtracks. Zola Jesus (a.k.a. Nika Rosa Danilova) is an opera-trained singer with a voice that reminds me a bit of Florence Welch... that is, if Flo was reinvented as a mysterious gothic witch about to suck your blood - and you wouldn't want to resist her hunger. To sum it up, it's basically brilliant. (8,5/10)
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)
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