Miguel – Kaleidoscope Dream

Miguel - Kaleidoscope Dream

By Greg Salter

If you’ve read or heard about Miguel in recent months, you’ll have probably heard him contextualised in terms of the recent breakout of several R&B artists – Frank Ocean and The Weeknd have wowed increasingly huge audiences, while Kalenna and Dawn Richard have stepped out of the shadow of Diddy Dirty Money with their ambitious and genuinely exciting new solo projects. Miguel’s story, like many of these artists, is not quite the overnight success that many would have you believe – in fact, he’s spent the best part of a decade building up to the release of Kaleidoscope Dream, an album that brims with confessional personality while grabbing at and devouring genres like they’re sweets in a pick’n’mix kiosk. … Continue Reading

Mosca’s ‘What You Came For’, featuring Katy B, to get a release

Mosca - 'What You Came For'

Last year, Mosca won a lot of new fans with his phenomenal ‘Bax’/'Done Me Wrong’ single, while Katy B‘s debut album was a huge success. The two have come together on a rework of ‘Bax’ – now titled ‘What You Came For’, it features a buoyant vocal from Katy B, very much along similar lines to the big singles from her album, like ‘Lights On’ and ‘Katy On A Mission’. Katy’s been including the track in her live sets of late, and now an official release has been confirmed – it’s out on Rinse on October 22. You can have a listen below. … Continue Reading

Dusk + Blackdown – Dasaflex

Dusk + Blackdown - Dasaflex

By Greg Salter

The return of Dusk + Blackdown, otherwise known as Dan Frampton and Martin Clark, is both a pleasant surprise and a bit of a big deal. Their first album together, Margins Music, released in 2008 and bringing together elements of dubstep, grime, field recordings and Indian music, was always supposed to be a one-off, and serves now as something of a snapshot of London’s musical landscape of five years ago, with dubstep just beginning to fragment and mutate. The duo haven’t exactly retreated in this period – Clark’s continued to write on music, and the pair’s monthly Rinse FM show showcases some of the more forward-thinking sounds that has risen out of the frameworks of genres like dubstep, funky and grime. In fact, they credit their constant contact with all this new music as the inspiration for returning to writing and recording, and new album Dasaflex certainly sounds like it’s been influenced by the bewildering array of genres and sounds currently bubbling away within electronic music in the UK. … Continue Reading

Video: Frank Ocean – Pyramids

Frank Ocean - Pyramids

An official video’s emerged this weekend for one of the many standouts on Frank Ocean‘s Channel Orange – the exquisitely overblown nine minute centrepiece ‘Pyramids’. Don’t expect to hear the track in full in the clip below – it’s a cinematic and suitably over-the-top take on the song that focuses on the track’s spaced out, slow-jammed second half. We get shots of Frank on a motorcycle and looking a little hysterical in a strip club, as well as a guest appearance from Channel Orange guest John Mayer. It’s pretentious, odd and enigmatic, and pretty much underlines why so many people have fallen for Frank’s fractured stories from his new album. Have a watch below. … Continue Reading

The XX – Coexist

The XX - Co-Exist

By Greg Salter

In an era when young bands’ debut albums are often previewed and hyped excessively for months, even years, The XX’s first album emerged with relatively little fanfare back in 2009 and promptly floored just about everyone who heard it. The unique combination that brought the band success is now so familiar that it hardly bears repeating – the interplay between the vocals of Oliver Sim and Romy Madley-Croft, the R&B-derived melodies, Jamie Smith’s focused distillation of dance music textures, and, more than anything, the space, the hush, the intimacy in those songs. … Continue Reading

Four Tet – Pink

Four Tet - Pink

By Greg Salter

Pink, a compilation of the singles that Four Tet has released over the last year with a couple of new tracks thrown in, arrived with little fanfare – just a post by Kieran Hebden to his fans and followers on his blog, and within the weeks a digital release followed. This fairly low-key process underlines that fact that Pink is largely made up of material that Four Tet fans will have already heard, but that doesn’t make this a stopgap between LPs. Pink testifies to Hebden’s continued exploration of dance music since There Is Love In You on that genre’s preferred format – the 12 inch single – and provides several tracks that will go down as career highlights for him. … Continue Reading

Factory Floor, London, Tate Modern

Factory Floor at the Tanks, Tate Modern, by Will Taylor

By Greg Salter

August 25, 2012

Down at the Tate Modern on London’s Bankside, The Tanks – the gallery’s newest exhibition space, reclaimed from the old power station’s oil tanks – opened recently to a bit of a mixed reception. By and large, critics loved the space itself, developed by Herzog and de Meuron, though many were a little disappointed with how the first installations were presented. You can put all that down to teething problems perhaps – give the gallery and curators time and they’ll find the best way to utilise the Tanks’ dark and frequently disorientating spaces.

As part of their launch, a number of interactive events have been taking place for a few weeks now and, on Saturday, Tate Collective staged a performance by Factory Floor. The London-based trio’s performance was hypnotic and visceral, suggesting that this might be the kind of event the Tate might want to revisit consistently with their new space. … Continue Reading

Teengirl Fantasy – Tracer

Teengirl Fantasy - Tracer

By Greg Salter

Teengirl Fantasy appear to have always been something of an anomaly – Nick Weiss and Logan Takahashi, the duo behind the band, have recalled in interviews that they struggled to find anyone to play or collaborate with when they first started out because their approach and music was so unique. When their debut album 7am emerged, it was usually framed as another product of 2010’s chillwave set, but that was unfair. On 7am, Weiss and Takahashi built their songs out of pieces of the history of dance music – when it worked, as on standout ‘Cheaters’, their tracks sounded as poignant as they did euphoric, radiating a communal energy and displaying an undying love for dance music. … Continue Reading

Antony and the Johnsons – Cut The World

Antony and the Johnsons - Cut The World

By Greg Salter

It’s worth taking a moment to think back to when I Am A Bird Now, Antony Hegarty’s still incomparable second album as Antony and the Johnsons, was released early in 2005. His self-titled debut album had emerged back in 2000, and had seemingly caught the ears of a small but very devoted audience, including Lou Reed and Devendra Banhart, who rallied for a label to back Antony’s unique vision and devastating voice. For many listeners, including myself, I Am A Bird Now was a quiet revelation – it’s hard to think of another album that is so melodically rich, so honest and intimate, with ten songs that spoke to you with the openness of an old friend. Antony’s voice certainly helped; with its quivering strength, it sounded like it emerged from between spaces, speaking with a strange power and precision. … Continue Reading

Hear an Aaliyah song featuring Drake, ‘Enough Said’

Aaliyah ft Drake - 'Enough Said'

There have been murmurings and murmurings and not very subtle hints from the man himself recently that Drake is involved in the imminent arrival of an album of unreleased Aaliyah material. Tonight, while the majority of the world were watching Usain Bolt run very fast, a song was posted on Drake’s OVO blog – it’s called ‘Enough Said’, it features Aaliyah’s unmistakable vocals alongside a verse from Drake and production from Noah ’40′ Shebib.

In a post-2Pac hologram world (there’s six words we never thought we’d write), you wouldn’t be blamed for feeling a little uncomfortable as musicians re-appropriate the music and image of artists who have passed away. However, after a few initial listens to ‘Enough Said’, it’s hard not to feel excited about this particular project – Shebib’s production is stunning, respectful, haunting and gorgeous. Drake also manages to reference Balotelli in the first lines of his verse halfway through the song – Manchester, stand up. Have a listen below. … Continue Reading