Lone – Galaxy Garden

Lone - Galaxy Garden

By Greg Salter

Lone – real name Matt Cutler – has spoken about Galaxy Garden as feeling a little like his first proper album and, if you explore his back catalogue, you can see what he means. Early albums like Everything Is Changing Colour and Lemurian were clearly indebted to hiphop, while later material like the critically acclaimed Emerald Fantasy Tracks from 2010 and last year’s Echolocations EP brought in elements of rave and Chicago house, just as several other UK producers were embracing similar influences. Though this was all strong, consistent material, you felt like this was music that paid tribute to particular eras and genres, like faithful exercises in nostalgia. … Continue Reading

Video: Little Boots – ‘Every Night I Say A Prayer’

Little Boots - Every Night I Say A Prayer

Earlier this week, a few of our writers gave their views on the new Little Boots single and the result was mixed – to our (editorial – ha) ears, ‘Every Night I Say A Prayer’ sounds like one of the year’s better singles – we This Is My Jam’d it yesterday, if that means anything to  you.

‘Every Night I Say A Prayer’ now has a video and, well, if you heard a fair amount of late ’80s/early ’90s Madonna in the song, prepare to see a lot more of Madge’s influence in the video. And to be honest, if Madonna’s going to insist on being so shit at the moment, then Victoria might as well step in and show her how it’s really done. Belly tops, voguing and lyrca below: … Continue Reading

Actress – R.I.P.

Actress - R.I.P.

By Greg Salter

‘R.I.P.’, the opening, title track of Actress’ third album is short and ephemeral, like something from Boards Of Canada’s Geogaddi album drained of all nostalgia and colour. It’s a transient opener, made up of synths and the quiet fuzz of noise that both pulse, and it’s gone before you know it – or at least subsumed by second track ‘Ascending’, which builds on a very similar heartbeat ambience. These tracks very much set the tone for the rest of R.I.P., which develops through repetition, remains resolutely beat-free for the majority of its run time and often mesmerizes you with its attention to the most minute details. … Continue Reading

New writers wanted – features, albums, gigs

Hello there. Here at Muso’s Guide we’ve always tried to focus on quality music writing, avoiding the temptation to publish every new track/video/album cover/press shot/hate email that finds its way to our inbox, and remaining – new Robyn albums aside – suspicious of ‘hype’. We publish daily album reviews, plus regular gig reviews, photo sets, features and single roundtables in our ‘Now Playing’ column; we cover pop, rock, ‘indie’, electronica, dance, hiphop and everything in between, and we’re proud of what we do.

We currently have a fantastic team of writers and editors who contribute to and run Muso’s Guide, driven by their passion for music and writing, and we’re looking for people to join us. If you’re interested in contributing, we’ve got a number of ways you can get involved. First off, we’re particularly interested in hearing from budding features writers – we’re looking for people to take on interviews with artists, or writers keen to pitch ideas for a regular column, or just someone who’s looking for a forum where they can reflect, intelligently and thoughtfully, on some of the issues flying around in the pop music landscape. We’re also always looking for new album and gig reviewers – come and join us if you’re interested in getting involved in this side of things too. … Continue Reading

Dawn Richard – Armor On EP

Dawn Richard - Armor On EP

By Greg Salter

Sean Combs’ Diddy Dirty Money emerged at the tail end of 2010 as a bit of a surprise – no one had been expecting Diddy to produce anything of real note for around a decade, let alone a loose concept album that acted as a kind of bridge between R&B of the past and future, treaded a fine balance between egotism and soul-searching in the lyrics, and came laced with some of the finest pop hooks in recent memory. The album was remarkable not only for the way it brought together some of the finest or more interesting MCs of the last few years (Drake and Lil Wayne for starters) but also in that Diddy was flanked by two women whose songwriting and vocal contributions arguably lifted the album way beyond the ruminations of a load of drunk and heartbroken blokes in the club – Kaleena Harper and Dawn Richard inhabited the roles of spurned lovers, eye-rolling exes, and yes, drunk and heartbroken women in a manner that made Beyonce and her ilk seem hopelessly one-dimensional. … Continue Reading

Listen to the new Death Grips album now

Death Grips - The Money Store

Ex-Military, Death Grips‘ debut album, found a fair amount of underground acclaim last year, and the hiphop group have already completed a follow-up - The Money Store is being released in a week but it’s available to stream (with around half of its tracks available for download) right now. We’ve got the stream embedded below – from an initial listen, it sounds like Death Grips have retained the ferocious energy and paranoid beats of Ex-Military on The Money Store, while expanding their sound in new directions – the ‘Push It’-esque rhythms of ‘I’ve Seen Footage’ being a case in point. … Continue Reading

Chromatics – Kill For Love

Chromatics - Kill For Love

By Greg Salter

Everyone likes a narrative, and Chromatics have woven a fair few in and around their music – there’s the shift the band undertook in the mid-00s from unspectacular guitar band to streamlined synth collective with ambition, driven (it would appear) by Johnny Jewel. There’s also the cinematic narratives that have formed the basis for the band’s long-players – 2007’s breakthrough Night Drive loosely gestured towards the idea that it might soundtrack one woman’s post-club, late night car journey, while Kill For Love comes with its own film poster, suggesting that we’re listening to a soundtrack for something here, without ever revealing exactly what that might be. Finally, there’s the narrative of the long-delayed follow-up album finally emerging – fans and critics have been waiting for Kill For Love for years, Jewel has been toiling away, narrowing 36 tracks of music down to the tracklist’s final 17 (he lists “blood, sweat, tears” at the end of a list of instrumentation on his soundcloud page) and the album cover looks not unlike that of another album which emerged triumphantly after a long, torturous gestation period. … Continue Reading

The Invisible return with ‘Protection’ ahead of a new album

The Invisible - Rispah

The Invisible‘s self-titled debut album was one of 2009′s slow-burners that almost saw them scoop the Mercury Music Prize that year – and now, having collaborated with everyone from Micachu, Jessie Ware and Polar Bear, the trio are on the verge of returning with their second album, Rispah. Below, you can find a typically rich, patient first taste of album in the form of ‘Protection’, while the full LP is coming in the UK and Europe on June 11 on the brilliant Ninja Tune label.

In the words of the band’s Dave Okumu, Rispah is a “love letter to grief”, deeply influenced by the death of his mother during the recording process. Okumu says, ”I couldn’t engage with music for a long period. The moment it returned to me was at my mum’s funeral, which lasted several days. One evening, during the wake, my grandmother Zilpa, my mother’s mum, arrived at our home accompanied by a group of women singing traditional spirituals. They approached my mother’s body and sang over it, dancing around her coffin. It was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. They transformed the atmosphere with sound and the spirit they brought to it. They were celebrating life and death, grief and hope, all things. This act was allowing everyone present to express themselves. It served as the most potent reminder of everything I believe about music. It’s there for everybody, it’s inclusive and transformative. I’m so glad these voices are stitched through our record.” Listen to and download ‘Protection’ below. … Continue Reading

Hear new Hot Chip song ‘Flutes’ now

Hot Chip

Hot Chip are gearing up to release In Our Heads on Domino – their first new album since 2010′s excellent One Life Stand. Today, we got the first taste of their new material – ‘Flutes’ has appeared on Youtube with a video that might make you feel a little bit dizzy. ‘Flutes’ is something of a departure from the more immediate pop of One Life Stand - it builds slowly and shifts between sections, more like a dance track than a pop song, while still brimming with positivity. Most importantly, it makes us want to hear more - In Our Heads is out in June.

In a way, it feels like Hot Chip haven’t been away – Joe Goddard’s Gabriel EP contained one of last year’s best songs in its title track, while Goddard was also partly responsible for the rather fine 2 Bears LP from earlier this year. It’s good to have Hot Chip back though – listen to ‘Flutes’ below.

… Continue Reading

Julia Holter – Ekstasis

Julia Holter- Ekstasis

By Greg Salter

I have been listening to Julia Holter’s second album Ekstasis for around a month – much longer than I would normally have been listening to a record before writing about it, such is the speed at which this kind of thing moves now. A bit of time is important for Julia Holter’s music I think – these songs have been composed in a slow, exploratory manner, developed and grown over time, out of improvisation, collaboration and experimentation.

In a way this is the exact opposite to something like the restless, short-attention-span-composition of the Grimes album, which is being released in the UK at the same time as Ekstasis. However, a bit of time may be important for you as a listener too – these are certainly well-crafted songs but Holter’s willingness to let the music go where it needs to can cause them to meander out of touching distance, while the insular atmosphere here can exclude you just as easily as it can absorb. … Continue Reading