Seattle-based spacefunk/funk’nroll duo THEESatisfaction released their debut album “awE naturalE” on local Sub Pop records in 2012 – it’s a good’un, so check it out if you haven’t already (I’ll wait…). Now, a new track – ‘Recognition’ – is currently making the rounds as the first taster from forthcoming sophomore effort, “EarthEE” (to be released in February, also on SubPop), featuring vocal contributions from long-time collaborators and fellow travellers (and Seattleites), hip hop collaborative Shabazz Palaces.
Where much of the debut seemed informed, sonically, by 80s soul and Native Tongues’ era hip hop, this new track has more of a heavy, tripped out 70s soul/psychedelic vibe – think Sun Ra, Funkadelic, Gil Scott-Heron. Repeated, hypnotic spoken word phrases (‘no work goes without/recognition’) over tabla and conga drums starburst into a middle third filled with spacejam synths and righteous, wailing vocals, before returning to the beginning. A tidy, 2:30 minutes plus groove. Looking forward to the rest of the album.
Expand your mind. Mind power. Power to the People. See it. Feel it. Dig it.
You can download ‘Recognition and pre-order “EarthEE” on iTunes, as well as here, here, and here. Visit Sub Pop’s page for more information on special offers, bundles, etc.
I don’t know/but you’re taking me for a fool…” So begins the new track from the South African artist Yannick Ilunga, who records as Petite Noir (oui, je sais), dropped last week on his Facebook page.
Prior efforts, including standout tracks like “Disappear” and “’Til We Ghosts”, worked with space – echoing, crooned vocals wound ’round a distinctive sound palette. The voice was not to be ignored however – from deep baritone to sly midrange, it was striking, Ilunga preferring to sing the melody at a slight tangent to the backing music.
On the new track, Ilunga adds falsetto to his vocal range, but the voice (while still commanding) is more part of a jam-packed sound scape than pushed to the fore. In fact, “Chess” features a sometimes overwhelming smorgasbord of tastes and genres as it grows across it’s 6 minute plus run time: the intertwining staccato guitar lines and stuttering percussion are reminiscent of past work, but also invited to the party are shards of house music and a wailing electric guitar, all pushed ‘to eleven’ – with an ending not a million miles away from the Brazilian percussion freakout at the end of Doves’ “There Goes the Fear”. The result could have been a mess, but isn’t; in fact, it’s compelling (check the interplay between the melody lines at round 5:30 – it’s infectious).
While perhaps a tad more commercial sounding than prior efforts, Ilunga seems to be finding a way to place his distinctive sound within the pop orbit without being sucked in by the weight of its inherent banality; hopefully, someone out there will notice, so we all have something decent to listen to on the radio.
Taken from forthcoming ep, “The King of Anxiety”, which can be preordered here.
Black Beach, The Youth Is Out There (self-released)
Been a while since I wrote about some good ol’ rock ’n roll, so time to rectify…
Black Beach is a 3-piece hailing from Middleboro, MA, USA. Their two-track ep (is two tracks an ep? we won’t judge), The Youth Is Out There, is music to sweat to – part punk, part garage, all rock; fuzzed-out guitars and vocals washed out to the point of incomprehension, duct-taped together by a manic rhythm section (so many crash cymbals….). The MC5 and Mudhoney in a chicken fight with The Thermals and The Stooges. Brilliant.
Released in July as a free download on their band camp page, which also has a couple of other tracks to sample (spoiler alert: they’re good, too). Since the bandcamp embed is not working, I can’t let you preview the ep, so go get it – it’s free – and, while you’re at it, go see their record release show at the Middle East on December 10.
Taken from to-be-released Girls In Peacetime Want to Dance (due January), this track shows a different side to the well-established Glaswegian outfit’s sound. While B&S have never shied away from dance rhythms, past grooves reminded more of Ready, Steady, Go – this cut is more Dance Party USA; a shimmering, glossy piece of late-80s club, complete with whiteboy funky lead guitar and a snaky (synth) bassline.
This tune may yet inspire the band’s notoriously bookish fans to discard their cardigans and do the Roger Rabbit – ‘Where’s Me Jumper’, indeed. Check out the video, below.
A Dead Forest Index, Cast of Lines EP (6/2/2014, Pop Noire)
Brotherly duo Adam (guitar, vocals) and Sam (drums, vocals) Sherry – from Aukland, NZ, currently residing in London – comprise A Dead Forest Index. Their latest, the Cast of Lines EP, was released on London-based Pop Noire – home of the equally arresting (though for much different reasons) Savages.
No review of Cast can get far without recognizing that voice. A voice that recalls equal parts Nico, Marianne Faithful (younger version) and Billy Mackenzie (just not the falsetto bit). Detached and solitary, yet also dramatic, arresting and present – the voice is the central focus of each of the four tracks.
The arrangements are ethereal, elemental; specifically, water. Seas, tides, currents – each appears often throughout in the lyrics; their ebb and flow mirrored by the languid power of the music. Each song builds upon itself, waves of harmony and orchestration added towards crescendo, lapping away at the lyrics until they’re stripped away to a solitary line/phrase, repeated like a mantra.
There are sonic touchstones here – the ethereal openness of early 4AD, the primitive jangle and thump of the Velvet Underground (particularly on “No Paths”). Similar to Money, there is something spiritual in the overall feel; a lonely, monastic ambience in the empty spaces – self-reflection in the universal. This record, though, stands on its own as something truly unique.
Highlights include: the immense “Cast of Lines” (video below), “Tide Walks”.
Andy Stott: Violence, Faith in Strangers (Modern Love, 2014)
Andy Stott’s previous work – including 2012’s full length, Luxury Problems and 2011’s EPs Passed Me By and We Stay Together – was often cloaked in shadows. Murky textures and dark, angular visions shrouded in a fog of dense bass rhythms; human vocals and other sounds fighting to be heard from beneath the ice of a frozen lake.
The two new tracks teased thus far from Stott’s upcoming follow-up, Faith In Strangers — “Violence” and the title track – allow a glimmer of light to penetrate the mists. Each includes vocals courtesy of Luxury cohort Alison Skidmore.
In “Violence”, Skidmore’s mumbled vocals are out front in the mix and distinguishable from the enveloping drunken haze – shot through with repeated satellite bursts of melody. When the beat stomps in – initially with about 1:00 left – the song opens wide and shows it’s jaws, sounding like an industrial, more antagonistic Portishead.
‘Faith in Strangers’ shocks, initially, with a slinky bass line, a snappy snare/hi hat tone and higher octave organ chords – somewhere between Aphex Twin and Liquid Liquid. The melody is infectious, swooning – rather than mining beauty from miasma, this one wears its loveliness on its sleeve. Skidmore’s reverbed vocals wind in and out, with a youthful quality somewhat reminiscent of late 80s indie or shoegaze.
Both are brilliant, and make Faith in Strangers (due November 17/18, depending on your location) on Modern Love Records, very highly anticipated.
“Violence” is available for download now, through iTunes.
The Juan MacLean, In a Dream (DFArecords, 9/16/14)
Electronic music tends to mine its past when crafting its present. “New” sounds tend to be an amalgamation of sounds that came before, perhaps presented in a new way or via novel platform; often mutated by what came in between. Dreams are, similarly, a subconscious manifestation of memories of past experiences, morphed by our current reaction to an emotional and/or physical state.
The new album by The Juan MacLean is called In a Dream, and it conjures many Ghosts of Dance Music past. As with the duo’s earlier releases – which recalled, variously, Chicago house, new wave, techno and disco – the sonic touchstones here are plentiful. A partial list of those I noted upon repeat listening include: early Madonna and mid-80s NYC new wave/dance music in general (“You Were a Runaway”); Temperamental-era Everything But the Girl (“Here I Am”, “Charlotte”); New Order (the guitar line at the 1:16 mark of “Love Stops Here”, the glassy, Technique-sounding synths in “Here I Am”); and early new wave (the intro and boy/girl response vocals of “I’ve Waited for So Long” recalls Human League). Several of the album’s highlights – the sublime “A Simple Design”, centerpiece “Love Stops Here”, “Running Back to You” and closer “The Sun Will Never Set On Our Love” – are satisfying combinations of these influences.
In fact, the album I kept coming back to while listening to In a Dream was Ministry’s much derided (by the band – I personally love it still) debut, With Sympathy. A trio of Dream’s cuts, “Running”, “Design” and “Runaway” very much recall the sound and feeling of that record, with vocalist Nancy Whang often sounding a bit like Shay Jones (backing vocalist on Sympathy’s “I Wanted to Tell Her”). “Running” takes it a step further; Sympathy synth lines welded onto a tune recalling the lush 80s R&B of labels like Tabu Records – the SOS Band meets pre-heroin Ministry! Naturellement!
The album is no mere nostalgia trip, however – it is as timely as it is timeless; taking cues from the past to shape the present. It is a beautiful marriage of lush, sweeping electronic wistfulness with darkly romantic lyrics, delivered by Whang (fantastic throughout) in a way that brings back the classic (somewhat detached) club diva. The sequencing is also spot on, with opener “Space is the Place” bookended by “The Sun Will Never Set On Our Love”. The latter – with its imperious, Vangelis(y) opening chords and titular, epic proclamation (here referring to love’s survival in the face of ecologic apocalypse, rather than empire-building) – could have been a fine centerpiece, but the ending refrain of sending love “in a rocket shape/send it out in space” provides the perfect coda to what is certainly one of this year’s best releases.
Highlights include: “Running Back to You”; “The Sun Will Never Set On Our Love”; “A Simple Design”; “Here I Am”).
Jessie Ware recently posted the track “Share It All” – the latest to be leaked in the run up to her soon to be releasedfull length, “Tough Love” (I haven’t been able to figure out a US date for the album). You can listen to the track above, and it’s also streaming on her Soundcloud page.
The song was co-written with Romy of The XX, and that band’s sonic fingerprints are felt throughout – Ware’s typically pristine vocals float amidst a languid atmosphere full of sonar synths and a thick bass drum. As it unfurls, the song glides along on a snappy beat that wouldn’t have been out of place on an old SOS Band cut. Ware puts her own stamp on the arrangement when she begins to riff on the initial, hypnotically repetitive melody.
It’s an interesting contrast in attitude and style. In the hands of The XX, the lines “could you share it all with me/and I’ll share it all with you/…if you want to” might have been delivered as a whispered plea to a would-be partner who’s busy talking to another on the other side of the room – the longed for reply never truly expected. For Ware, the lines are sung “to”, rather than “at” someone, but in a hopeful, romantic way – there’s nothing brash here (think Sade, not Beyoncé). A lovely little ballad.
Running, the Chicago band whose excellent Vaguely Ethnic was previously reviewed here on thegrindinghalt.com, return with a new 3-track single (is that an EP?) – “Frizzled” – due July 22 on the Drag City (Ty Segall) label imprint, God? Records.
“Totally Fired” is track 3 – stream it above and hear samples of this and the lead track at http://www.dragcity.com/products/frizzled. An intrusive squall of feedback stumbles into a roiling hornets’ nest of guitars, vocals, drums and bass clamoring to be heard from beneath a gauzy cocoon of distortion. The song lurches fore and aft until being rather rudely interrupted around the 2:40 by a sound resembling either a fax machine or modem dial (perhaps I’m dating myself with these references?). The remainder of the track is a push/pull battle between this noise and the main tune – who wins is in the ear of the beholder.
The early Nirvana influences from Vaguely are still present, mixed with some Ginn-like guitar work and sounds that wouldn’t have been out of place on records by more outré 80s hardcore bands like Flipper or Government Issue. A welcome, noisy return.
Last week, Interpol released the video (below) for this song, the lead single from forthcoming fifth full length (‘allo, alliteration!), El Pintor, due September 9 in North America and September 8 in the rest of the world. All in all, a very “Interpol-y” song, harkening back to their first few records – a good thing, since recent output suggested a band running out of gas. Idling along on singer Paul Banks’ baritone, crooning dolorous over an organ and shimmering guitar line, the song quickly shifts gear through a chugging bass line (courtesy of Banks) and straight ahead beat. Slimming down to a three-piece seems, on this evidence, to have reinvigorated the band. Minor quibbles with the production (would like to hear Sam Fogarino’s drums pushed forward in the mix) and length (the ‘hey, hey, hey’ thing starts getting old towards the end) aside, this has me looking forward to hearing more from the new album.
