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

Leopallooza 2012: A Festival Review

By Charlotte Gay

The echoes of music, fun and laughter have been replaced to the gentle lowing of cows as Leopallooza VII draws its 2012 festival to a close. Their story began seven years ago when four avid music lovers wanted to create a festival with genuine intentions, fair prices, volunteering friends and a great atmosphere.  Leopallooza mark 7.0 proves their core values have not changed. They’re getting recognised for their work too with the Guardian this year naming it as a favourite boutique festival and one of the cheapest at that. … Continue Reading

Saint Max and The Fanatics – Saint Max and The Fanatics EP

Saint Max and The Fanatics - Saint Max and The Fanatics EP

By Kenny McMurtrie

Looking a tad like the hipster younger brother of The Proclaimers, Saint Max thankfully has a vocal style more in line with that of Smiths-era Morrissey than the dedicated walkers from Leith. This spritely five track debut kicks off with a blast of Mariachi-like brass and then jangles along with the trumpets parping and trilling away over the top for an enjoyably upbeat couple of minutes on track one, ‘A Life Worth Living’, with the boy Max displaying a deft mastery of lyric writing as well as delivery of said lyrics. … Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth! With DJ Tennis ft. Pillowtalk, Bit Funk and Havana Candy

DJ Tennis ft. Pillowtalk - 'The Outcast'

By Stef Siepel

The Weekly Froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the week: ‘The Outcast’ by DJ Tennis feat. Pillowtalk

I feel like I’m seeing quite a bit of “featuring Pillowtalk” recently. Now I’m aware of that, I also get quite excited when noticing it. Pillowtalk’s aesthetic, apparently, is close to mine. So if he works on it, chances are that it has the kind of sound I like. This one, too, is very nice indeed. It’s got some nice, light keys which are contrasted by a deep bass sound. After two minutes the vocals come in, which are lovely. I also really like that these vocals get the room to breathe. They are way out in front, with just some minor sounds in the background to throb it forward. Even when the heavy handed bass comes in it seems that these, by comparison, light vocals weave through it perfectly so the vocals and the bass don’t get in each others way. If I have to complain about something (and bitch I shall) is that the vocals sometimes kind of stop, and it goes on instrumentally for a prolonged period again. Now, that isn’t bad, but it is kind of abrupt. From the delivery, you wouldn’t assume a prolonged instrumental period would be coming. Aside from that minor (minor) point, just a really lovely song this. It’s going to be out on Kompakt in September. … Continue Reading

Angel Haze – Reservation

Angel Haze - Reservation

By Russell Warfield

A guessing game for those of you who have seen the menacing little trailer for Reservation which was put on YouTube in advance of the album’s release: what immediately recognisable sample do you think Angel Haze’s debut record opens with? (For those who haven’t seen it, allow me to paint a picture: a collection of masked, hooded types hold flaming torches aloft, set to eerie and tense drone. Cut to Haze herself, peering intensely out of a headscarf, being slowly unveiled to reveal an unsmiling face of menace and power). I’ll wager that none of you guessed that a trinket box rendition of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ was the sample in question, and setting into motion such an assertively named song as ‘This Is Me’, at that. Even more surprisingly (and disappointingly) it’s not employed with any sense irony, neither as deliberate contrast with a sudden onslaught of undercutting grime or terror. Worst of all, it sets the tone for most of the album rather nicely. … Continue Reading

Five: Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith

By Richard Wink

This is the latest in an occasional series of features where one of our writers reflects on their five favourite tracks by a particular artist. Here, Richard Wink explores his own personal responses to the music of Elliott Smith.

Any sensitive soul who’s contemplated the relevance of their own existence, and in turn sought out Sartre texts from second hand bookstores, who has endured messy break-ups and dribbled red wine down plain white t-shirts to represent all the blood that has metaphorically been shed, has gravitated towards singer songwriters who can aptly soundtrack lost love and internal destruction. I chose Elliott Smith to be my tuneful voice of reason in the midst of such ruinous chaos during my formative years, and up until the present day. … Continue Reading

Antony’s Meltdown 2012: A Festival Preview

Nick Cowan, Robert Freeman, Greg Salter and Sam Cleeve take a moment to look at some of the events they’re looking forward to as part of this year’s Antony-curated Meltdown Festival. This year’s Meltdown Festival takes place August 1st-12th t London’s Southbank Centre. Full line-up and tickets details are available here: http://meltdown.southbankcentre.co.uk/

… Continue Reading

Dusted – Total Dust

Dusted - Total Dust

By Jim Merrett

If you were looking for the point furthest removed from Holy Fuck’s glitchy, pounding collage of DIY hypercolour krautrock, Dusted could be it. The band’s Brian Borcherdt presumably was, hence this side project. Stepping out from the homemade labyrinth of wires, keyboards and sequencers, Borcherdt has seemingly aped what LCD Soundsystem once prophesized in ‘Losing My Edge’: “throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real”. (But a Yazz record this isn’t.) … Continue Reading

TNGHT – TNGHT EP

TNGHT - TNGHT EP

By Joe Bates

If there was anything that defines Glasgow-based label Lucky Me, it’s the wedding of bass music to more commercial chart fodder. From Jacques Greene’s emotive R&B vocals giving his tracks shape to Rustie’s hyper-appropriation of synthesised pop trends, the music it provides a platform to owes as many debts to hip hop, pop and R&B as it does to any genre of club music. Out of the three, hip hop is the one which Hudson Mohawke and, especially, Lunice have gravitated towards in the past, so their coming together as TNGHT with this 5 track EP isn’t especially unusual.  Their individual productions are influenced by the simplicity and brashness of some of the more low-fi hip hop production, so you’d expect the duo to gel well over these shared starting points. … Continue Reading

Now Playing: The XX – ‘Angels’

The XX - Co-Exist

Now Playing – every week, a roundtable of our writers will give their views on one of the recently-released new tracks. It’s as simple as that! If you want to tell us what you think of the song, feel free to leave a comment below.

Track: ‘Angels’ by the xx … Continue Reading