I love you múm

When you think of Iceland in terms of music, you think, forward thinking experimentalists with fantastic melodies. From the intricate howlings of Bjork, to the power of For a Minor Reflection or the charming indie folk of Seabear, there's talent nestled away in every nuck of the little island. And Múm are no exception to the rule. Hailing from this icy nation alongside fellow glitch peers, Amiina, they create bustling soundscapes through chirpy hooks and erratic beats.
The 2000 debut album (reissued in 2005), Yesterday was Dramatic, Today was OK takes you on a journey into the land of glitch. The album opens with "I'm 9 today", a song that is emphatically hummable brings together a bunch of synths that really do explain the name of the track. It is as if the track is describing the subconscious thoughts of a girl on her 9th birthday. The simple but effective tumble of the embarking synth bumbles away throughout the entire track, spiced with soothing pads.
Track 2, Smell Memory gets more and more frantic, syncopated rhythms furiously breaking out left right and centre, shit gets crazy, and as you start to think "arrghhh my head, it's ERODING" the following track, There Is a Number of Small Things jumps to the rescue, like a Sunday morning brew and paracetamol. It soothes and warms, still with obscure drum hits to keep it interesting it builds up and bursts into life, the beat gets steadier, the vocalization kicks in and the true beauty of the song is released.
Random Summer, a more ambient piece feels as though it is closing what could be a four track EP, the first set of songs all sounding as if they were made to fit together so perfectly. The album's midpoint, "Asleep on the train" and "Awake on the train" go by with yet more flawless percussion, the balance between the bouncy drum hits and plonking synths hits perfection. And so the album steams on through yet more astonishingly good tracks, each movement fitting into the next flawlessly. And then, airy vocals hit you. An angelic voice sings over a raking guitar, the piece gradually builds up and drops us right back into the epileptic breaks once more.
The album rounds itself off with two consecutive eight and a bit minute epics. The first one clunks steadily like heavy machinery and then morphs into a monster! Everything intensifies, it's no so much glitch anymore, but some sort of ambient breakcore?! (now there's an oxymoron if i ever did coin one). Conclusively, the album reverts back to it's 9 year old self, but this time less excitable, more perplexed I suppose.
I am yet to discover an album quite like Ywdtwok, and it saddens me to think that, it will be unlikely that I ever will. This album is a real masterpiece, and Iceland can grant itself +10 awesomeness as a result.

Download it here.

Folk me.

Just rediscovered a lovely little album on my ipod by Long Island, New York inhabitant Laura Stevenson. Her music isn't too different from Laura Marlings in that it's got beautiful vocals and whimsical acoustic guitar playing. It's just lovely. "A record" is perfect autumn Sunday afternoon music, so should you so happen to be lurking around on the internet today and read this, then don't delay to download it because it might make your day a little bit better. Actually, it will probably last into winter too, because i could imagine this being rather nice to listen to on a sunny winters day.
Download!

Squelchy Squelchy

I bring to you today, 3 albums by 3 electronic producers. These days there is a constant barrage of electronic "choonage" being thrown around, and in this world of bleeps and bloops, it's hard to sift through the wank and find something that really does stick out. So here be a handy helping erm, hand.

First up, we have the musical stylings of Wagon Christ. His album Musipal is stylistically diverse, musically exciting and contains samples that might make you giggle. Heavy use of sampling chunks of films and various other tv bits and bobs fused with bumbling synths and trip hop beats give Wagon Christ his own unique sound. Opening track "Premise" is a fantastic intro and really does set the whole theme of the album, (which by the way is fantastic throughout). Fresh, acidy, wibbly basslines and the odd drum n bass beat keep the album interesting and mixed up all the way through. But Really if you are planning on downloading just one of these 3 albums, then make it this one. Download!

The second album i'm catapulting towards you is one by British electronica guru Tipper. The Seamless unspeakable something (2006) is an album of chopped twisted beats and most notably, an awful lot of squelching, which is a good think in case you were wondering. They squelchyness is so awesome, and instead of using more words to describe music, i'm just going to go ahead and give you the download. Download!

Thirdly! The album the first got me into the hyperactive spazz child that is Breakcore. Venetian snares - rossz csillag alatt született, and no i haven't a fucking clue how that's pronounced. It's a cascade of ridiculously breakneck beats (lots of amen break chopping) and some of the finest classical music sampling I've ever heard! It's as if Vivaldi got transported to the future and got raped by 60 foot Gorillas... and then he produced a soundtrack to it. So if you feel like you need to release some pent up energy, then stick this on and "Go sick". Honestly, it's great. Download!

Talent shows.

Glorified talent shows always turn out to be a complete shit gay wank fest, no matter what awful turgid tedium form they should so happen to take. But of them all the X factor is by all means THE creme de la shit of them all, i mean there's Sky 1's disastrous "must be the music", but i mean, it's on Sky 1 and not even the vast majority (moron) sector of our population have recognised it's existence thank god. Then there's the bbc "talent" contests involving jizz weasel, Bruce Forsyth gurning his way through some monotonous performance of moronicy. But it's aimed at old people, who thankfully I have NO contact with what-so-ever, on account of 2 reasons. a) they're quite a stupid bunch in general. and b) they smell of incontinence. So it's ok because this shit isn't rammed down my throat 24/7.
Then there's the omnipresent "Britain's got Talent" which is almost on a par with the X factor in terms of it making you want to force a barbed hook into your ass and setting your face on fire. It gets repeated over and over again, driving itself into your mind like Gary Glitter into Vietnamese 3 year olds. But at least it has a smidgen of actual entertainment value in that the nutcases are more deluded and the ones that do flips and shit can amuse you for a minute or so.
But nothing matches up to the X factor. Warbling soulless imbeciles aiming to reach the point where they will release one awful album and promptly disappear off into obscurity, thank fuck. But it's the constant facebook statuses, radio coverage and general conversation that really takes the biscuit. As if the tv coverage wasn't enough, this cuntpetition (see what I did there) is unavoidable in all walks of life. And what do we get from all of this? Another shit Christmas number one and music in general becoming a bit less of a respectable art form. X factor is in essence to music what North Korea is to freedom. This can't go on, we need to somehow boycott it somehow, maybe by drawing and quartering Simon Cowell or possibly a 1000 man gang rape of Louis Walsh. Something along those lines anyway, but until this happens, i have a horrible feeling that we're going to be stuck with year after year of pop wank for the rest of our lives.

New shit!

So it would appear the dance punk artist shit robot is releasing a new album! Hoorah! Wait, what do you mean "who the fuck is shit robot?"
Well shit robot is producer Marcus Lambkin from Dublin/New york/Germany who makes funkier than thou tunes to rattle yer skull. Not too dissimilar sounding to LCD soundsystem (Lambkin being a good Friend of James Murphy), shit robot is also on DFA records.
The debut album "From Cradle to Rave" which features guest vocals from James Murphy himself, Alexis Taylor (Hot chip) and Nancy Whang (LCD Soundsystem) is out on the 21st so until then you'll have to make do with the songs uploaded on the myspace.
Hope you enjoy!

Quick post!

I'm sort of strapped for time, but i feel the overwhelming desire to post something! So here we go, just a speedy wee youtube link to a song, i hope you''l enjoy!
GROUPLOVE - colours
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATNKWKxpMqw

dabbling in dubstep

Inspired somewhat by my own article, I started relistening to a lot of my old forgotten favorite dubstep EP's and albums again. You might well own many of these already if you're into dubstep because to be quite honest, they're pretty "entry level". By no means does this imply that they're bad at all, it's just that they may not be anything new to you.

So allow me to start off with a tasty bit of the producer known as Burial. His second studio album, "Untrue" was a masterpiece of 07, the streets of modern day london personified and recreated sonically with the echoey 2 step beats now synonymous with Burial alongside ambient synths that manage to give the music a huge atmosphere, only within a box. This box isn't preventing the creativity of the album, but rather keeping the sound in and reverberating everything back in on itself to form a beautiful mesh of melodies. It's not all smiles and echoes however, within this album it feels as though there is something ominous, something not quite right. The vocals, dressed up to sound dreamy give off a feel of eeriness amidst the soft crush of sound. This shows most notably in the song "Etched headplate", opening with what sounds like a London mother explaining that her child (possibly one who has committed some sort of crime) has "a lot of love in him" just before the song erupts with shuffled beats that hit hard.
More of these squeaky yet defined vocals continue and really give the album another dimension and by the time we hear the albums closer "raver" it's hard to come away from the experience anything less than in awe.
People say that electronic music can never have the heart or sole in the same way that more organic genres can posses, this album just proves that you don't need twinkling guitars or sweeping strings to tickle your emotions. Trust me, it's something special.

Download this right now! HERE!
Stay tuned for more posts regarding yet more dubstep.

Dubstep, killed off by pop or still growing stronger than ever?

Normally my posts here are just me recommending chunks of tune for you to dabble, but i thought, why not write a wee article for those who are somewhat interested in what I have to say, and those who are just really bored. (I would expect pretty much everyone reading this to fall under the latter label).

As you've probably realised by this point being the observant bugger that you are, this short article is about the suddenly ballooning genre, Dubstep. 2 years ago, the term would have probably meant nothing to you, and maybe, if you're a bit slow, it still doesn't. Basically, it's the dark and lumbering creature that evolved from late 90's 2-step Garage taking snippets of influence from what is now somewhat regarded as it's sister genre, Drum n Bass. Growing up on the streets of Croydon, London, Dubstep really started off as a hobby for the few blokes who had a passion for the more ominous sounds of 2-step Garage. Nurturing Dubstep up through the 00's was the job of a small group of London producers, Benga, El-B, Mala, Kode9, Coki and a few others, but most notably, Bromley born Oliver Jones, AKA Skream.

With the genre being pretty underground during the early 00's it wasn't really until 2005/06 that it really started picking up some real attention and when Skream released midnight line request, the genre was catapulted to a new level. With more and more clubs playing dubstep people were finally warming to a genre that once seemed so obscure and insignificant.

With dubsteps popularity rising, it was only a matter of time before it picked up some real mainstream media attention. This came in the form of radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs's radio program, "Dubstep Warz", an hour long radio show devoted entirely to Dubstep. Burial's self titled 2006 album was also received with remarkable praise, "The Wire" magazine going as far as to put it as it's number 1 album of 06.

Still the genre remained relatively unheard of yet still gaining loyal followers as the scene grew. Then, in 2009 "shit went down". Once again Skream had released another incredibly well received tune. The difference this time was that it was a remix. The remix that took Dubstep to en entirely new world of popularity. In for the Kill, a song by female synth pop artist "La Roux" was already a well loved song by many, but it had yet to reach it's true potential. Being the true mastermind that he was Skream transformed it into a monster, set on rampaging across the UK and truly capturing the public's attention.

Now here we are in 2010, mention Dubstep to pretty much anyone between the ages of 14 and 28 and you can guarantee they at least know of the genre. It's reached such a huge stage that most songs released now have at least one Dubstep remix somewhere. Many inspired by Skream's huge success have taken to producing remixes themselves, and some of the stuff made really is astounding.

However, it's not all fun and wobbles today. Many so called Dpurists, those who have watched Dubstep evolve and have supported along the way are becoming wary that their beloved genre is becoming a novelty product, a mere gimmick that will entertain the masses for perhaps a year or so and then be left to die, raped by popular culture. And the purists make a fair point, many of the newer school of producers, Borgore, Flux pavilion, Funtcase and Rusko appear to have "resorted" to taking Dubstep to ridiculous levels, basing their entire producing careers around making the "Filthiest Wobbles". On the face of it, it honestly does look like Dubstep has lost all it's subtlety, but it's perhaps not quite as simple as that.

Some have branded this latest phenomena of Wobbly Dubstep with other names, such as "Brostep" and "Wubstep". As with many EDM genres, Dubstep has it's own offshoot. Brostep could be perceived as what Gabber is to Hardstyle or what Breakcore is to Drum n Bass. Catering for the masses brostep is neither a step forwards or backwards for the genre, it is a step sideways. There are still producers out there creating some of the most amazing sounding dubstep tracks to date who produce in fashion with the older, original Dubstep sound. Joy Orbison being but one of a myriad of these new producers keeping relatively clear from that now overused and slightly uninteresting "WUB WUB WUB WUB" sound.

No, pop isn't killing Dubstep, it's simply carving itself a new side channel for it to run down, and if it's getting people interested in the sound and essentially electronic music in general, then that's brilliant, we all have to start somewhere, and this shallow pool of Dubstep is great for getting started with.
Dubstep has traveled a long way and it looks set to keep on rolling thanks to the new innovative ideas from producers both old and new. Dubstep is anything but done with us yet.

Great song and a fantastic remix.

If you haven't heard it already, i urge you to listen to the song drugs in my body by thieves like us. It's a great slice of wonky indie/electropop.
If you have heard it already and love it in the same way I do, then allow me to recommend the Vogelspand remix of it. Sadly Vogelspand disbanded earlier this year, but we'll always have this fantastic piece of electro awesomeness to remember them by.

The gems of Leeds festival

Hey, you probably haven't noticed that I haven't posted for quite some time, this is partly because of me having a social life (or something like that) and partly because I've been at Leeds festival. I've seen a fair few amazing performances and in the wake of this i thought I'd go ahead and share some of this juicy goodness with you all!
Fist up, a Sheffield band called The Crookes who play jangly indie pop not too dissimilar to that of Vincent Vincent and the Villains and in places sounding a little like a much happier version of The Smiths. I think this is definitely a band to watch out for in the near future and one you should certainly check out! Listen to Backstreet lovers.

Part London, part New Jersey part Hiroshima based indie rockers, Yuck have been doing their rounds on the blogs over the past few months and proved themselves worthy of the buzz in putting on a great set at Leeds fest (although non of them broke a smile the entire time), I guess that's just the cool thing to do. Listen to Automatic.

Avi Buffalo put on a bit of a strange show for the Northern punters, but the weird howlings of lead singer Avi didn't discredit the music in anyway at all. Citing Panda Bear, Pink Floyd and Simon and Garfunkel as influences avi buffalo make music that is just really pleasant to listen to, don't believe me? Have a listen to What's in it for.

Egyptian Hip Hop, an up and coming Manchester band that I've been bleating about for ages proved that their tunes were just as fantastic as they sounded on record. At such a young age they have really taken fame in their stride and performed to a very high standard (although there seemed to be a momentary lapse in concentration during one of their songs) they powered through a set of unique sounding tunes and finished on crowd pleaser wild human child. Check their performance of set opener floppy ghost out here!

Last but not least I thought I'd give a special mention to Caribou who gave me one of my personal favorite performances of the whole weekend. Playing a set consisting only of songs off the new album Caribou really captured the audience and proved that the new electronically driven album could stand up to the test of being performed live. Sadly I can't find any decent videos of the actual gig but listen to sun!