The 2 Bears – Be Strong

The 2 Bears - Be Strong

By Jim Merrett

A GSOH might be a prerequisite for a lonely-hearts ad, but in the music industry it won’t get you very far. Everyone wants to be taken seriously, so a po-face, skinny jeans and stick-on council estate accent is in, a bear suit is definitely out.

But if there’s one music genre that knows how to have a good time, it’s dance. And of course this arena is not alien to novelty either. No doubt thanks to the availability of cheap drugs, we’ve embraced robots (Daft Punk) and a man with a massive mouse head (deadmau5), now with a typically British low-rent, half-hearted Carry On spirit the 2 Bears lumber into a club near you. … Continue Reading

Gold Panda – DJ Kicks

Gold Panda - DJ Kicks

By Jim Merrett

Existing at the polar opposite end of the spectrum to the Now That’s What I Call Music compilation juggernaut, the DJ Kicks series offers a glimpse of a world where singles charts are controlled by a revolving door of non-elected dictators with impeccably well-informed taste in music and not based on the fickle democratic whims of the vast bunch of morons we collectively know of as “the Great British public”. For 15 years, it’s offered the then-serving custodian of the DJ Kicks mantle the opportunity to impose their worldview on listeners. … Continue Reading

David Lynch – Crazy Clown Time

David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time

By Jim Merrett

It’s probably no surprise to learn that the debut album by David Lynch is cinematic in scope. Better known for his back catalogue of films, this effort isn’t about to change that. But the 65-year-old has dabbled in music before – from the odd score to one of his odd movies to a scattered history of collaborations, more of which appear here. If you’re familiar with the man, you’ll have a rough idea of what this is going to sound like. And largely you’ll be right. Only instead of Kyle MacLachlan, you’ve got Karen O.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer makes a guest appearance in ‘Pinky’s Dream’, this album’s clattering opener, a rhythm beaten out of shattered Chris Isaak surf guitars pointing down an imagined highway, a motif shared by much of Lynch’s body of work. As is the darkness that seeps from the stereo. … Continue Reading

The Field – Looping State Of Mind

The Field - Looping State Of Mind

By Jim Merrett

Repetition is an effective means of getting across all the nuances of a piece of music – just ask all those Guantanamo detainees for their thoughts on Barney the purple dinosaur. As the album title suggests, Axel Willner’s third effort as The Field turns reoccurring patterns of sound into a weapon used to crack open and then fuck with listeners’ heads.

But where Looping State Of Mind deviates from the US military’s rendition playlist is that after 24 hours’ exposure to any one track over-and-over, rather than break you down, you would still be picking new subtleties out of said sound nugget. That and the fact it doesn’t involve a man in a dinosaur suit. … Continue Reading

Walls – Coracle

Walls - Coracle

By Jim Merrett

The cover of Walls‘ Coracle provides a handy visual aid. Much like cLOUDDEAD’s equally extraordinary (if very different) debut, it shows a cloud formation, a nod the ethereal sounds contained by the album format and to the stratospheric heights scaled within.

Last year’s eponymous debut was named electronica album of 2010 by NME journalist retirement home Mojo – which is a bit like scoring the top hybrid car award in Horse & Rider. Despite its brief gestation, the follow up is a vast evolutionary step forward. The only difficulty with this album is when you attempt to shake it out of your head afterwards. … Continue Reading

Shabazz Palaces – Black Up

Shabazz Palaces - Black Up

Now here is a record designed to defy conventions. A Sub Pop release – their first rap record, natch – that sounds like it’s on Warp, or even Anticon. In an age of downloads, a beautifully put-together piece of packaging – velvety black with gold Arabic trimmings – that makes you want to own it as a physical object rather than as an ephemeral essence that exists only on iTunes. And proof that you can listen to Outkast and Flying Lotus at the same time.  That it also happens to be probably the most interesting and compelling hip-hop album released so far this year is a given (sorry, Odd Future). … Continue Reading

Dave ID – Response

You’d imagine that David Hedges isn’t a big consumer of house porn lifestyle magazines. If you’ve ever spent 10 minutes flicking through LivingEtc, you’ll know that the bedroom is supposed to be a sanctuary away from the bustle of everyday life, all white walls, soft pillows and warm background noise. That isn’t the message you get from Response, his debut, recorded in a south-east London home studio set-up that sounds like the enigmatic Dave ID sleeps on the factory floor of a T1000 assembly line. … Continue Reading

Washed Out – Within And Without

No one – other than contortionists with a strong sense of job satisfaction – likes being put in a box. Musicians are notoriously claustrophobic. Show them a movement or a scene that you intend lumping them in with and generally they’ll run the other way. Pigeonholes are their kryptonite, and with Washed Out you can see why. … Continue Reading

Spaceghostpurrp – Blvcklvnd Rvdix 66.6

Barely out of his teens, Spaceghostpurrp hails from Miami, but you imagine he has little time for the Sunshine State’s hallowed beaches. You’re more likely to find him holed up in his musky bedroom (or “the underground”, as you imagine he refers to it), perfecting his fatality moves, drawing pentagrams on the floor and listening to his own records backwards. … Continue Reading

Battles – Gloss Drop

With Mirrored, Battles took a scattergun, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to songwriting and delivered an unhinged, uncatergorisable, technicolour polyrhythm rampage that inexplicably worked. Possibly the most remarkable thing to come out of that startling debut – and there were many remarkable things – was that its munchkin marching anthem ‘Atlas’ went on to become the ubiquitous soundtrack to an unlikely array of TV programmes, idents and adverts, all of which were less memorable than the song itself. … Continue Reading