Jacques Greene – Ready EP

Jacques Greene - Ready EP

By Greg Salter

In amongst the huge, ever-mutating world of dance and electronic music, Montreal producer Jacques Greene has spent the last couple of years distinguishing himself and winning fans. Tracks like infectious ‘(Baby I Don’t Know) What You Want’, the Brandy-sampling ‘The Look’ (released at a point when not everyone was sampling Brandy), and the storming ‘Another Girl’ took up elements that had been bubbling through the underground and gave them a crisp, luminous sheen. More recently, he stood out from a fairly strong crowd on Radiohead’s remix album, contributed productions to Azealia Bank’s new material, and moved closer to R&B with his Concealer EP, released earlier this year on his own Vase imprint. … Continue Reading

Hear a new Bat For Lashes song, ‘Laura’

Bat For Lashes - The Haunted Man

Back in 2009, Natasha Khan – Bat For Lashes to you and me – released her excellent second album, Two Suns – it was one of our favourites of the year. On October 15, she’ll release the follow-up, The Haunted Man – you can see the slightly dodgy album artwork to the left.

As a teaser, she’s made a track from the album available to stream – you can listen to ‘Laura’ below. It begins as a sparse, piano-led track, reminiscent of some of the more muted material on her debut Fur And Gold. It’s hard to remember a time when Khan’s voice has sounded so strong and confident, leaping through octave as she sings “Your name is tattooed on every boy’s skin/Oh Laura, you’re more than a superstar”. If you pre-order The Haunted Man on iTunes you’ll get ‘Laura’ as an instant download – in the meantime, have a listen below. … Continue Reading

Hear a new track from Dawn Richard, ‘Pretty Wicked Things’

Dawn Richard - 'Pretty Wicked Things'

Earlier this year, Dawn Richard caught a lot of people’s attention with her Armor On EP – we loved it - and yesterday, a new song called ‘Pretty Wicked Things’ premiered to begin the campaign towards her new album Goldenheart. As Dawn explains:

“Goldenheart is the fusing of new sounds with R&B/soul. We are introducing the setup to Goldenheart with the release of ‘Pretty Wicked Things’. This isn’t a single. It’s a setup. We have a lot of surprises for the hearts. Grow with us.”

‘Pretty Wicked Things’ was produced and co-written with Armor On collaborator Druski and brings dance and electronica elements to a more straightforward R&B melody and structure, a bit like previous tracks ‘Black Lipstick’ and ‘Faith’. In fact, ‘Pretty Wicked Things’ works a lot like ‘Faith’ as it takes up something that has become fairly ubiquitous recently – the EDM drop/wobble here – and makes it new, strange and unique. Take a listen below, it’s streaming via Rap-Up, and it’s available to buy at iTunes. … Continue Reading

Cooly G – Playin Me

Cooly G - Playin Me

By Greg Salter

Some of the finest records seem to occupy their own space – completely self-contained and of their own world, they’re not insular so much as all-encompassing, and they’re often albums that people fall for heavily. Over the last decade or so, Hyperdub have released a number of records like this – think of Burial’s Untrue, Kode 9 and the Spaceape’s Memories Of The Future, Darkstar’s North to name just a few. With the release of Cooly G’s debut LP, Playin Me, the label have put out another album that hauls you into its own world, from the distorted, pulsating guitar line that opens first track ‘He Said I Said’, which stutters like a nervous heartbeat beneath Cooly G’s anticipatory lyrics: “Sitting here across the room from you/Thinking ‘bout what we gonna do”. … Continue Reading

Frank Ocean – Channel Orange

Frank Ocean - Channel Orange

By Greg Salter

I feel like the best way to think about Frank Ocean is as a storyteller – he’s said as much himself recently and this allows you to take in the shifts in tone and focus on Channel Orange as the album unfurls over its 55 minutes. The songs on this album sit somewhere between the personal and political and, with an empathy and insight rare in modern pop music, Ocean just allows his stories to unfold with a refreshing openness. Whether he’s recounting his own story or zoning in on the lives of others – rich and poor – his lyrics bear an astonishing attention to detail, a desire to engage with big questions, and a great deal of honesty. … Continue Reading

Five: Cat Power

This is the first in an occasional series of features where one of our writers reflects on their five favourite tracks by a particular artist. Here, Greg Salter kicks things off with Cat Power, who recently announced that her new record, Sun, is due on Matador in September. … Continue Reading

Frank Ocean – some thoughts

Frank Ocean - Pyramids

Waking up this morning, we were greeted with an announcement from Frank Ocean that he is bisexual. Rumours about Ocean’s sexuality had been circulating for a little while – a few journalists have been given the chance to hear Ocean’s forthcoming Channel Orange album ahead of its release and it emerged that it includes a number of love songs addressed to men. Despite the speculation, the announcement still hit with a fair amount of force – for a man operating within the R&B world (though Ocean would describe himself simply as a songwriter) to openly identify as anything other than heterosexual is, to date, unheard of. … Continue Reading

Four Tet to collect vinyl releases together for new album, Pink

Four Tet - Pink

Yesterday, Four Tet hinted on Twitter that an announcement about a new release could be imminent, and here it is, via his own blog. On 20th August, he’ll release Pink on his own Text label – a release on CD in Japan via Hostess Entertainment will follow two days later. All of the tracks, bar two (‘Lion’ and ‘Peace For Earth’) have been released over the last year or so on vinyl. So this isn’t entirely new material, but for those who missed out on the 12s as they came out, Pink could be a vital catch-up opportunity. … Continue Reading

Kyle Bobby Dunn – Bring Me The Head Of Kyle Bobby Dunn

Kyle Bobby Dunn - Bring Me The Head Of Kyle Bobby Dunn

By Greg Salter

Kyle Bobby Dunn has produced an impressive back catalogue of instrumental, loosely ‘ambient’ music over the last few years – Fragments And Compositions Of was his first official release in 2008, following a series of CD-Rs, while 2010’s A Young Person’s Guide To Kyle Bobby Dunn brought together a range of pieces from a recording career that stretched back to his early teens. Last year’s Ways Of Meaning was a meditative, moving step forward – with the tracks recorded over a shorter space of time in one place, the whole LP felt unified and encompassing as you listened. … Continue Reading

Jam City – Classical Curves

Jam City - Classical Curves

By Greg Salter

“What is appealing about the medium of marble, or any sculptural stone for that matter (my favorite is Bardiglio, similar to black marble but with veins of silver running through it), is the controlled sensuality of it.”

The above is a quote from Ms Muzik Channel, in conversation with Jam City and with whom she collaborated on a number of visual projects to go alongside his new album Classical Curves. Her phrase “controlled sensuality” goes some way to described the seductive, half-human, half-alien sounds on this record, a rich, disorientating, carefully-constructed jumble of the real and the fake that makes genre feel like an irrelevance. … Continue Reading