DJ Shadow
Endtroducing Reimagined
Universal
LP/DD/CD:
Out Now:
The very thought of Josh Davis’ pioneering landmark fusion of sampled hip-hop and breakbeats being ‘reimagined’ is likely to divide listeners into two distinct camps - those that care and those that don’t. Prior to copping several earfuls of this new take on DJ Shadow’s 1996 classic, I was in the former - now I’m somewhere in the middle. Where the original remains a timeless satisfying urbane journey, Reimagined becomes almost pointless, dated even, after the first contemporary retakes of Best Foot Forward, Building Steam With a Grain Of Salt and The Number Song fidget to a conclusion, although the latter does eventually build its junglist rhythms into a fit of atmospheric pique. Stem/Long Stem is virtually unrecognisable from its 20 yr old sibling while Mutual Slump sounds laboured where once it was strident. Not surprisingly Hudson Mohawke and Prince Paul stick to the brief with engaging versions on Midnight in a Perfect World and What Does Your Soul Look Like? but by this time I’m already yearning for the original beautiful double-album to make a return to my turntable as soon as possible. 6/10
Some Kind Of Illness
Souls:
Self/Bandcamp:
Out October 31st:
After the first SKOI release a couple of years ago, Paul Hinks’ sleepy brand of musical melancholia takes a turn for the better with the addition of accompanying soulful almost-gospel vocals and a few synth fills to swell the ranks. Hinks himself retains his Richard Ashcroft-esque drawl and woozy ambient Vini Reilly-informed guitar work - that’s when he’s not employing a more traditional strumming style, as on the elegiac title-track and The Other Side of Hate. Where Souls really becomes a different beast is on the more electronic 2019 (which could be mistaken for early Aphex Twin) and the upbeat Another World which sounds both retro and futuristic with its subliminal off-kilter programming and nod to early New Order. Lido is perhaps the album’s centrepiece, a confident slowbeat slice of acoustic solemnity which proffers a hopeful harmonic chorus of sorts. Two albums in and Some Kind Of Illness are slowly but surely easing themselves into the consciousness of dream-pop aficionados. 7/10
The Cosmic Range:
New Latitudes:
Idea Fixe Records:
LP/CD/DD:
Out October 28th:
Knocking around on the fringes of left field experimental rock for a decade or more now, Matthew Dunn hails from Toronto and indulges his oddball whims with echoey ambience, post-jazz passages and galactic psych-funk, most of which strikes an intriguing chord on this eclectic long-player. Boasting just six tracks, it’s a free world of Miles Davis, Don Cherry and Art Pepper influences taking an acid bath with Zappa, Beefheart and Parliament. Slightly deranged in places - take Barbara for example, which I doubt is a homage to Streisand, Cartland or, er, Dickson - New Latitudes is just that, reminding me of some of the extreme avant-garde output of the ‘80s and ‘90s from the celebrated Touch imprint. In fact it only calms down when the treated piano tones of Look What Our Love Has Done drift into earshot to just, y’know, calm us the fuck down. Great for headphones, bad for driving to. 6/10
Yama Warashi:
Moon Egg:
Stolen Body Records:
LP/CD/DD:
Out November 11th:
Japanese artist Warashi now resides in Bristol, not that you’d guess from this concept album of sorts - we’re talking a mix of the traditional orient and contemporary Japan stirred in with Gamelan drums and Brit-folk beyond the standard realms of verse-chorus-verse etc.. Moon Egg begins with the title-track and the sweetly trilled Funa Uta, both of which sport deft Afrique rhythms and harmonics that may or may not be performed as a result of imbibing way too much disco tea. The first Western influences rear their head on the sub-Can downbeat groover Tangled Roots, while Quagmire Moon picks up the pace with a nifty bass-line and insistent percussion work. Although there’s a mix of Japanese and English tongue, Moon Egg is by turns enchanting and debilitating musically, let alone lyrically. Certainly worth an earful or two. 6/10
Conrad Schnitzler & SchneiderTM:
Con-Struct:
Bureau B:
LP/CD/DD:
Out November 18th:
Part of a series of abstract electronica albums, Con-Struct sees the former Tangerine Dream and Kluster musician Conrad Schnitzler’s catalogue get a compositional overhaul rather than just a straight remix. Issued posthumously, this particular volume features SchneiderTM whose own material is as equally challenging if not more so. Thus tracks such as Dabb and Doozer would rival Autechre for sheer weirdness and head-shocking dynamics (there are no melodies to speak off, merely threat and suspense), while Wie Geht Die sounds like Mix-Up-era Cabaret Voltaire on a day out to a sub-station. Think pylons, think circuitry and think about how in the world humans can rinse such sounds from mere machines. And that’s before you’ve even tackled the behemoth of a closing track, all 24 minutes of it. If you’ve ever sashayed to Nocturnal Emissions or achieved the moonwalk to Nurse With Wound, you might just start firing up the glow-sticks to the fearsome Wurmloch. 6/10
Ballads Of The Broken Few:
Cooking Vinyl:
LP/CD/DD:
Out Now:
Enjoying something of a free-reign under the label guidance of esteemed one-time folkie hang-out Cooking Vinyl, Dartmoor’s own marketing department-with-fiddle-n-guitar Seth Lakeman explores a world of balladeers, troubadours and the beaten-down on this heavily blues-influenced eighth long-player. Lakeman has employed the dulcet vocals of all-girl harmony-group Wildwood Kin and turned the predictable folk-album on its head by giving it roots and resonance. If there’s one thing that the Devonian is great at and that is opening album-tracks and Willow Tree (extracted from The Full English project) is no exception, a spine-tingling gospel-informed story (and a somewhat sad story at that) that sets the tone for what is an intimate cousin of 2011’s Tales From The Barrel-House. It’s mainly bare-bones acoustic folk with little studio trickery and plenty of tales of farewells, trysts, burials and traditional landscapes with the title-track and Fading Sound spectacular highlights. Lakeman refuses to sacrifice his art for writing ukulele-driven drivel. Rather he's become something of an unsung but respected ambassador for British folk and good on him for that. Four Top 20 albums in and there's seemingly no stopping him. 7/10
Empire of the Sun:
Two Vines:
Universal:
LP/CD/DD:
Out Now:
Australia’s very own version of Pet Shop Boys’ flamboyant but skewed vision of the world deliver their third album, the follow-up to 2013’s somewhat misfiring Ice On The Dune. Opener Before continues along the same mid-tempo synth-pop path of yore and bodes well for what ought to be a return to form. Despite some earnest anthems and occasional intelligent pop, Two Vines sees Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore sound somewhat lacklustre and resigned to the fact that their initial popularity is starting to dwindle. Where 2008’s confident debut album Walking On a Dream gave birth to sensational choruses (and equally noticeable headgear), eight years on the formula has lost its bungee. It isn’t all a disaster but Two Vines could do with being about five tracks shorter with the risible auto-tuned There’s No Need being something of a portentous title. 5/10