After two previous releases, St. Vincent (a.k.a. Annie Clark) finds a way to channel her avant-garde instincts in more accessible directions, displaying a firm grasp on pop songwriting forms even as she subverts them. In tandem with producer John Congleton, she plays nervous industrial beats and quivering keyboards against billowing ‘60s-ish melodies. Her cooing vocals on “Cruel” and “Surgeon” insinuate dark scenarios of betrayal and abandonment, transcending mere irony into something palpably sinister. More direct in their intentions are “Cheerleader” (an anthem of personal liberation) and “Champagne Year” (a jaundiced look at success). If Clark’s lyrics tease and dazzle, her music hits hard sonically, clattering to a galloping groove on “Hysterical Strength” and erupting into guitar-fueled cacophony on “Northern Lights.” The otherworldly grandeur of Kate Bush or Björk is recalled on tracks like “Chloe In the Afternoon.” But St. Vincent is in a class all her own as she exorcises sexual demons, grapples with psychic breakdown, and achieves an uncanny catharsis.
M83’s cinematic tendencies come to a head on French musician Anthony Gonzalez\'s sixth album. Zola Jesus’ turn on “Intro” sets the scene like a cliff dive filmed in sparkling slow motion, and “Midnight City” amps up the synth-pop drama with soaring vocals and volleys of electronic drums. “Reunion” revisits the ringing guitars of ‘80s soundtrack staples from bands like Simple Minds, and from there Gonzalez glides across ambient interludes, bright digital keys, and stadium-sized New Wave. It’s the perfect marriage of indie aesthetics and blockbuster production.
If Bradford Cox’s first two albums under his Atlas Sound moniker are intimate patchworks of ambient bedroom pop, *Parallax* is where he fully emerges into the spotlight. Full-blown folk-rockers like “Mona Lisa” stand beside Technicolor art-pop masterpieces like “Te Amo” and “Terra Incognita,” rivaling his best work in Deerhunter and bridging his experimental and accessible sides with beautiful harmony. This album features one of indie rock’s most beloved voices coming into his own without losing his unique sense of grace.
If *In Rainbows*—with its direct, live-influenced songcraft and game-changing honesty box pricing—was Radiohead aligning two distinct visions of the band, this eighth record explores a third way. Concise, dance-indebted, and dripping nocturnal electronica, *The King of Limbs* sees them experiment with galloping loops (“Bloom”) and blippy production (“Morning Mr Magpie”). Still, their knack for affecting avant-rock is undimmed, and “Lotus Flower” is a spectral—and appropriately beautiful—career-high.
In the wake of 2007’s spectral *White Chalk*, Polly Jean Harvey turned her songwriting focus outward. Dismayed by the direction of politics in her British homeland and around the world, she set to writing lyrics—fever-dreamish poems that used brutal imagery and borrowed lines from older music—that worked through her sadness and anger. Using three autoharps, each tuned to different, dissonant chord configurations, she transformed the verses into striking, sad songs. *Let England Shake* is an elegiac 21st-century reimagining of the protest album, an urgent call to end global cycles of war that hits harder because of its ghostly sonics. Harvey’s voice is the focal point of *Let England Shake*, although its timbre sharply contrasts with the shredded wailing that made her harsher ‘90s records so celebrated. On songs like the rain-spattered “The Glorious Land” and the swirling “Hanging on the Wire,” she’s in the upper reaches of her range, adding a pleading edge to her cutting observations; she hovers over the echoing chords of “On Battleship Hill” in an unnervingly beautiful way, heightening the horrors once committed on that site. “The Words That Maketh Murder,” meanwhile, accentuates its grimy images with bleating brass and a snippet of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” that simutaneously calls back to the post-World War II era’s seemingly endless promise and mourns the present. *Let England Shake* evokes the fog of war while puncturing it with potent reminders of its bloody reality.
Helplessness Blues is the new full-length from Fleet Foxes. Helplessness Blues was recorded over the course of a year at Avast Recording, Bear Creek Studios, Dreamland Studios, and Reciprocal Recording. The album was recorded and mixed by Phil Ek and co-produced by Fleet Foxes and Ek. The piece that appears on the album cover was illustrated by Seattle artist Toby Liebowitz and painted by Chris Alderson. Fleet Foxes is Robin Pecknold, Skyler Skjelset, Christian Wargo, Casey Wescott, Josh Tillman and Morgan Henderson.
With 2009’s *Hospice*, Peter Silberman recruited drummer Michael Lerner and multi-instrumentalist Darby Cicci to help flesh-out what was supposed to be another solo album, but an uncanny chemistry resulted. The music birthed on 2011’s *Burst Apart* is the sound of this chemistry solidifying with stunning beauty and confidence. A confessional “I Don’t Want Love” opens flirting with *OK Computer*-era Radiohead as glimmering electro flourishes and lilting guitar lines compliment Silberman’s woeful falsettos before “French Exit” takes an uncomplicated approach to melodic chamber-pop by building on primary parts to create elemental dynamics with a less-is-more ethos. “Parentheses” is an amazing standout that digs a bit deeper into electronic influences (namely, Boards Of Canada and early recordings by Air) with sequenced beats, pulsing bass loops and Silberman’s high inflections singing soulfully over his band’s organic mechanics. “Rolled Together” gets into Sigur Rós-inspired atmospheres with an infectious lyrical mantra. Bonus track “Tongue Tied” is a robotic dirge with Silberman channeling the future ghost of Thom Yorke.
On their sophomore album, Bon Iver add just a touch of color to their stark indie folk, while retaining every bit of its intimacy. The haunting chill of solitude continues to cling to Justin Vernon\'s every word, even when his lilting falsetto radiates warmth over a rich bed of acoustic guitar, synths, and horns. The drama exudes from every little sound—the soft, pattering snare guiding \"Perth,\" the delicate whirrs of sax on \"Holocene,\" and the big, gleaming synths on \'80s-esque noir jam \"Beth / Rest.\"
Bon Iver, Bon Iver is Justin Vernon returning to former haunts with a new spirit. The reprises are there – solitude, quietude, hope and desperation compressed – but always a rhythm arises, a pulse vivified by gratitude and grace notes. The winter, the legend, has faded to just that, and this is the new momentary present. The icicles have dropped, rising up again as grass.
Vancouver’s Dan Bejar has always been a sly kind of agitator, tearing apart the conventions of indie rock from the inside out. *Kaputt* turns the sloppy proclamations of his earlier albums on their head, opting for streamlined yacht-club funk in the vein of Steely Dan and \'80s Roxy Music. Though the music is soft and leisurely, Bejar’s lyrics remain serrated: “Hey, mystic prince of the purlieu at night/I heard your record, it’s alright,” he sings on “Savage Night at the Opera,” half-whispering with witty contempt.
The British electronic pop artist James Blake was showered with attention and nominations in his native land in 2010 and 2011. That’s striking because Blake’s music is truly strange. Drawing on the weirder side of R&B as well as leftfield English dance music, the singer/songwriter crafts spare and spooky gems. On “Unluck,” simple electric piano (evocative of ‘70s Sly & The Family Stone), itchy rhythmic tics, and sound blurts serve as a backdrop as Blake sings, at times through a vocoder. The track sounds like something you would hear while a producer was tinkering with a mix, but here it’s the intriguing end result. One of the album’s singles, “The Wilhelm Scream,” is as lovely as it is eldritch. The catchy melody is surrounded by music that is both minimal and ambient. Blake is capable of all sorts of odd moves: on “I Never Learnt to Share,” a beat doesn’t kick in until the cut is more than half over. One of the album’s highlights is a cover of the Canadian songwriter Feist’s “Limit to Your Love,” which consists of his naked voice, piano, and a haunted atmosphere.
Some might say John Maus needs to censor *himself*, perhaps ease up on the reverb saturation and resist the thieving of Joy Division bass lines and ‘80s analog synth texture. But a growing number of fans praise Maus and his unrepetent moods of doom, his exaggerated baritone that borders on satire (Bela Lugosi’s dead!), his fondness for ridiculously churchy organs. What is his story, you might ask? He’s a sturdy Midwestern son, PhD student, and pals (and collaborator) with musical cousins Ariel Pink and Panda Bear. *We Must Become …* is Maus’s third and most cohesive album, though hooks still evade and compelling atmospherics are the order of the day. The wow factor on a few tunes might help reticent listeners come around to falling under Maus’ spell: the chilling waltz that is “Cop Killer,” the gothy “Quantum Leap,” and “Hey Moon,” a gorgeous, dreamy duet with the notable Molly Nilsson (the song’s author), all might catch skeptics by surprise. Actually, if the Gregorian chant-haunted “Keep Pushing On” and the synth pop euphoria of “Believer” don’t convince you, you may as well move along.
We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves breaks new ground for John Maus; the shirt-pulling and air punching of his impassioned live performance is finally captured in all its frenzied appeal alongside his typically tender inner space. Packaged in a card sleeve.
Wye Oak has taken their blend of atmospheric folk and indie rock into new territory on their understated and tension-filled third release. Jenn Wasner’s guitar work moves from feathery acoustic strumming to piercing electric licks and squalling feedback, often within the same song. She’s also a mesmerizing singer with a sensual, mysterious, and husky voice that pulls you in. Andy Stack’s nimble, expressive drumming and subtle use of keyboards for the low end provide the ideal platform for their fluid songs. The duo offer their own take on the soft-loud-soft school of songwriting on the dynamic standouts “Holy Holy,” “Dogs Eyes,” “Hot As Day,” and the title track, which are anchored by controlled bursts of sound. Balancing them out are languid dream-pop cuts “The Alter” and “Plains” that highlight their strong melodic sense. Setting these already good songs apart is the inventive production: varied layers of sonic textures are woven into the tunes so smoothly that the studio effectively acts as a third band member. Wye Oak’s first two albums were good. This one is great.
The serene Dan Graham cover photo is no misdirection: this is some relaxing music. The Garden State’s pre-eminent chillout band gets deeply mellow on their second album, but they never drown in a bottomless sea of reverb. Instead, Real Estate’s swirling guitars and wispy vocals strike just the right balance of sharpness and haziness, as on the gorgeous “Out of Tune” and the sparkling “Wonder Years.” *Days* perfectly conjures those sun-soaked July afternoons when you’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Tim Hecker albums have always sounded like an eternal struggle between darkness and light, with glimpses of terror and tranquility lurking around the edges of every ambient loop. And while they’re all worth a late-night listen, *Ravedeath, 1972* is one of his most cohesive artistic statements yet; 12 songs that bleed into one another beautifully. So beautifully, in fact, that they could have been combined into a single track without anyone noticing. Since they aren’t, it’s best to let the entire thing fill your room like the live recording that led to its creation. (Most of the record was captured in one day at an Icelandic church with Hecker’s close friend, fellow sound sculptor Ben Frost.) To listen is to let the light creep in through the bandages, and feel cleansed as the very last note flickers and dies like a rain-doused bonfire. Heavy stuff indeed.
Producer Jamie xx reimagines Gil Scott-Heron\'s final album, *I\'m New Here*, as a beguiling electronic experiment; the Englishman’s sleek, shimmery production turns the jazz-funk poet’s raw urban tales into supple grooves. \"I\'m New Here\" sets Scott-Heron’s husky baritone against a bass-heavy backdrop with high-pitched Gloria Gaynor samples, and \"Running\" rides on choppy breakbeats and steel drums. The fusion\'s at its finest with the hypnotic dubstep jam \"NY Is Killing Me\" and the xx-like house cut \"I\'ll Take Care of U.\"
When The Weeknd’s debut mixtape, *House of Balloons*, dropped in 2011, it was clear, even then, that something had shifted. This was a divergent kind of R&B that hinged on atmospherics over vocal prowess—an almost soulless quality in a genre built around soul. At the time, The Weeknd was largely anonymous, hiding in the shadows of his own music, the aloofness only adding to the allure. He was no one and yet everyone, as his raw, bruised candor resonated with fans suffering the effects of overexposure and contradicting desires to both feel and be numb simultaneously. He was a decent enough singer (his falsetto often drew comparisons to Michael Jackson), but it was the one-two punch of the nocturnal sound and indulgent lyrics—the darkness, the dysfunction, the hazy synth-bath of it all—that gave it staying power. When he says, “Trust me, girl, you wanna be high for this,” as he declares on the opening track, it\'s hard to tell whether it\'s an invitation or a warning, but it landed on ears that were all too happy to oblige. *House of Balloons*, here now in its original form with all samples restored, introduces the sentiment that has underscored nearly all of The Weeknd\'s music that\'s followed: a blurring of the lines between love and addiction, between having a good time and being consumed by it. In multi-part songs such as “House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls” and “The Party & The After Party,” a night\'s zenith and nadir are never too far apart; his audience, like his women, are held captive by the mercurial nature of his moods. A line like “Bring your love, baby, I could bring my shame/Bring the drugs, baby, I could bring my pain,” from lead single “Wicked Games,” serves as a kind of mission statement for the mixtape\'s (and, perhaps, the singer himself\'s) central tension. In the exchange of affection and substances, there exists an emotional transference wherein power is gained by feeling the least. The Weeknd taps into our id-driven urges for pleasure and domination and rewards them again and again. Cruelty somehow becomes sexy in this world where detachment—from everything—is the only goal; the music that he’s created as a soundtrack continues to leave its audience equally insatiable. As the years go by, *House of Balloons* has become increasingly timeless. It remains as much an exercise in mythmaking (and star-making) for The Weeknd as a testament to our own pathological impulses, sending us barreling towards destruction and ecstasy all at once.
The noise-lovin’ What’s Your Rupture? label brings us the guitar ... er, eruptions of Denmark’s youthful (teenaged) Iceage, with a U.S. debut entitled *New Brigade*. Fans of tough, abrasive punk — with a tolerance for undercurrents of noise, no wave and thrash — will want to put headphones on and clear the room of breakable items; songs like “New Brigade,” “Total Drench,” and “You’re Blessed” are fueled by semi-automatic drum parts and sparking guitars that throw enough heat to melt a Danish winter. Other tunes, like “White Rune” and “Collapse” hint at the earliest jolts of England’s great post-punk band Wire, tapping into the tangled roots of noise and art-damaged punk. Singer Elias Rønnenfelt intones the lyrics in English, barking in a flat, brooding expression of dissatisfaction, and there is a vortex of visceral, emotional energy at the music’s core. “Broken Bone” and “Eyes” pulse with raw energy, landing like a Fugazi punch wrapped in shoegazing softness; did original punk ever feel this good when it landed square in your gut? We think not. These kids are something to watch.
Taiwanese-born Canadian indie musician Alex Zhang Hungtai finally bequeaths *Badlands*, his debut full-length vocal album. Here Hungtai’s creativity culminates in lo-fi experimental post-rockabilly. “Speedway King” opens with a hypnotic mantra of minimally mechanical sounding drums that recall those of the band Suicide. Over these haunting rhythms Hungtai croons in a curious accent with the slippery inflections of a young Elvis Presley. “Horses” follows with similarly plodding rhythms as a ‘50s guitar tone reverberates through a continuous riff while Hungtai’s voice simmers down to sound like a young Roy Orbison singing on a David Lynch soundtrack. Hungtai ingeniously foregoes a guitar solo for a bridge where he instead implements manipulation of the spring in a reverb chamber to create some vintage sounding noise-rock that sounds both menacing and sexy. He whisper-sings in the libidinous “Sweet 17” over more riff repetition creating an atmosphere where those ‘50s juvenile delinquents from Karlheinz Weinberger’s photos run rampant. The serpentine “Hotel” closes with Hungtai returning to his spooky instrumental style.
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Florence + The Machine deliver one baroque-pop anthem after another on *Ceremonials*. Booming percussion, strings, echoing keyboards, and big guitars create a towering platform of sound from which Florence Welch emotes with a fury. Her powerful voice erupts amid a gospel choir on “Shake It Out,” “What the Water Gave Me,” and “Leave My Body,” while tribal drums fuel “No Light, No Light” and “Heartlines.”
Drake\'s still fretting about lost love, the perils of fame, and connecting with his fellow man; just look at him on the cover, staring into a golden chalice like a lonely king. These naked emotions, however, are what make *Take Care* a classic, placing Drake in a league with legendary emoters like Marvin Gaye and Al Green. \"Marvin\'s Room\" is one of the most sullen singles to hit the Top 100, and the winsome guitar howls of the title track, coproduced by Jamie xx, are among of the most recognizable sounds of the decade.
Any honey flowing through Lykke Li\'s coy pop fully hardened on this dark and doomy follow-up to her 2008 debut album. The Swedish singer/songwriter traps the loss of youth and love in a warped wall of sound that echoes vintage girl-group pop on big, gushing torch songs like \"Unrequited Love\" and \"Sadness Is a Blessing.\" But she comes into her own when harnessing her womanly power, with big, booming percussion on the tribal-esque thriller \"Get Some.\"
Philadelphia’s The War On Drugs hold the perfect balance of classic rock and spaced-out indie rock. Members Kurt Vile, Charlie Hall and Kyle Lloyd departed the band at the end of 2008, leaving founding singer and guitarist Adam Granduciel to recruit drummer Mike Zanghi and bassist/guitar player Dave Hartley. Yet somehow, 2011’s *Slave Ambient* sounds a lot like 2008’s *Wagonwheel Blues*. “Best Night” sets the tone like *Nebraska*-era Springsteen as accompanied by the musicians who played on Spiritualized’s *Songs in A & E*. Throughout *Slave Ambient* there’s also a prevalent lean on Krautrock-inspired repetitions, immediately noticeable during the first song’s end jam and in the hypnotic “It’s Your Destiny.” The consecutive pulsing speeds up on “Your Love Is Calling My Name” where Granduciel’s nasal-toned croons recall a young Tom Petty under driving indie-rock oscillations braided together with some dream-pop ambience. Fans of the band’s previous penchant for anthemic epics will feel right at home with the uplifting “Come to the City.”
Philadelphia’s The War on Drugs, the vehicle of Adam Granduciel — frontman, rambler, shaman, pied piper guitarist and apparent arranger-extraordinaire, returns with 'Slave Ambient'. On their debut, the life-affirming 'Wagonwheel Blues', and the follow-up EP, 'Future Weather', The War on Drugs seemed obsessed with disparate ideas, with building uncompromised rock monuments from pieces that may have seemed like odd pairs. Folk-rock marathons come damaged by drum machines. Electronic and instrumental reprises precede songs they’ve yet to play, and Dr. Seuss becomes lyrical motivation for bold futuristic visions. Now, Granduciel has done it again, better than before: 'Slave Ambient', their proper second album, is a brilliant 47-minute sprawl of rock ’n’ roll, conceptualized with a sense of adventure and captured with seasons of bravado.
Brooklyn based Liturgy is Hunter Hunt Hendrix, Greg Fox, Tyler Dusenbury, and Bernard Gann. Aesthethica, their second album and third release, shows the band exploring, in greater depth, themes initially touched on by their critically acclaimed debut album, Renihilation. The band used every instrument, literal or figurative, to produce meaning and intensity, disregarding the genre boundaries of black metal, hardcore and experimental music. On Renihilation, Liturgy made use of simple song structures, and concentrated on sustaining a blindingly high intensity level from start to finish. Aesthethica, a more controlled and polyvalent effort, finds the band operating at multiple levels and using more varied forms. The music is both elaborately crafted and chaotically performed. Songs often begin in the form of a simple chant or hypnotic abstraction, then evolve into something dense and complex. A constant sensitivity to the states of attention that different musical patterns activate and foster, yields a paradoxical result: the more complex the music, the simpler the message. Cycling through the fundamental modes of being: stasis, chaos, repetition and entelechy, Aesthethica is a metaphorical exercise in affirmation. The record is a unified whole. A major concern, sonically and lyrically, is the question of what it is to be meaningful, and how intensity relates to emotion or affect. Many of the songs activate and manipulate cliches relating to heroism, tragedy, hope, and so on by connecting black metal techniques to the spirit of film score writing (Vangelis, Badalamenti) and post-Romanticism (Scriabin, Sibelius). "High Gold" presents a vision of apocalypse, "Harmonia" presents a judgment on the meaning of life, and so on. The resulting collection of songs, at once, embodies and transcends these tropes. The music is supersaturated with lofty melodies and lyrics, bursting with frenzied execution, and builds to a boiling point of chaos, distorting all meaning and distilling to reveal the raw core of pure sonic joy. Liturgy surrounds these fractured islands of meaning with a sea of a-signifying ritual repetition and sound (Branca, Sleep, Lightning Bolt). Tear at the seams of the straitjacket of ordinary life, release the energy from the field of potentiality that it binds, enter the realm of the good and the beautiful, so commands Aesthethica. Highly technical musicianship, poetico-mystical gesturing, and a minimal directness; all singular elements, whose interactions and reactions are contained in and bursting from a black metal framework. Revelatory contrasts presented in an intensely physical performance whose energy is palpable and whose abatement is as illuminating as its arrival.
Little Dragon’s original blend of cool vocals, bouncing electronics, and classy beats comes together perfectly on their third album, *Ritual Union*. The rubbery bass and propulsive percussion of the title track provide a slinky soundtrack for singer Yukimi Nagano to chew over the pitfalls of marriage and monogamy; elsewhere, her soulful voice is swept along by gorgeous synths on the catchy, R&B-kissed pop of “Shuffle a Dream,” and then layered with reverb over the cold electronic pulses of “Little Man.”
The first full-length release by producer and multi-instrumentalist Ernest Greene helped define the sound of the chillwave movement. *Within and Without* is a heady mix of throbbing bass and cleverly layered synth sounds underpinning Greene\'s tender, faded vocals. The single \"You and I,\" featuring Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, is a particular high point. But from the sumptuous melodies of \"Eyes Be Closed\" and the uplifting \"Amor Fati\" to the blissed-out haze of \"Soft\" and the title track, Greene\'s relaxed, sensual vibe creates a sustained mood of pleasurable nostalgia.
Washed Out is the operational alias for Atlanta, GA’s Ernest Greene, and on July 12th, we at Sub Pop Records will be releasing the first Washed Out full-length, Within and Without. We are excited about this, to an almost unseemly degree. Greene recorded Within and Without with Ben Allen, who, among a great many other things, co-produced Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavillion, Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere and Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest. In 2009 Washed Out released two critically-acclaimed EPs; Life of Leisure (Mexican Summer) and High Times (Mirror Universe Tapes). Most recently, the Washed Out song “Feel It All Around,” from Life of Leisure, was chosen as the theme song for the new and very funny IFC series Portlandia, which features Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney/Sub Pop alum and current Wild Flag member Carrie Brownstein. Early confirmed press for Within and Without includes a “Breaking Out” feature in the June issue of SPIN, as well as NPR “Song of the Day” coverage for the album’s lead track “Eyes Be Closed.”
From *Belong*’s anthemic title track onwards, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart deliver a confident sophomore album filled with arresting melodies and awash in glorious noise. Part of the credit goes to co-producers Flood (of Smashing Pumpkins renown) and Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine and Ride, among others), who give the New York quartet the sort of arena-shaking sound they deserve. Happily, the band is ready for this sort of widescreen treatment, offering a batch of taut, relentless rockers and dreamy ballads made to be played with enraptured fury. Kip Berman’s wistful vocals hover over massed guitar feedback and thick, panting bass, bringing out the longing buried within “Even In Dreams,” “Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now” and “Heart In Your Heartbreak.” Peggy Wong-East’s surging synthesizers coat “My Terrible Friend” with a bright neon glaze; the echo-bathed “Anne With an E” achieves a Spectorian melancholy grandeur. Somehow, the Pains manage to do it all with disarming humility, as if they were still unknowns thrashing away in garageland obscurity.
Chelsea Wolfe\'s sophomore album, *Apocalypsis*, is steeped in a palpable gothic spookiness. But for all of Wolfe’s macabre, self-lacerating instincts, her brand of doom-folk displays humanity and even tenderness along with disturbing sonic backdrops. The tracks here trudge and seethe with a somber air amid clattering percussion and astringent guitars, suggesting liturgical rites in haunted cathedrals. The furtive rumblings of “Mer” and the brittle garage-rock thrust of “Demons” inject some life into the ghoulish proceedings. “Movie Screen” moves slowly amid a wash of electronica droplets, while “Pale on Pale” slowly rises to a horrific crescendo. Wolfe’s keening howls and tormented murmurs are bathed in distortion for added ominous effect. The entire album would slide into the nightmarish zones of Varg Vikernes’ projects if Wolfe didn’t bring a sense of vulnerability and inner need to her songs. The wounded love ode “Tracks (Tall Bodies)” is especially revealing along these lines. Dark stuff indeed, but there’s a human heart to be found in the bleakness.
In the three years leading to 'Conatus,' Nika Roza Danilova went from being an outsider, experimental, teenage noise-maker to a fully-fledged, internationally-celebrated, electronic-pop musician. It was a huge accomplishment, and, despite her age (young), her origins (mid-western, desolate), her accelerated scholastic achievements (high school and college were each completed in three years) and her diminutive physical size (4'11", 90 lbs), she has triumphed. She has emerged as a figurehead — a self-produced, self-designed, self-taught independent woman. Conatus is a huge leap forward in production, instrumentation and song structure. The definition of the title says it all: the will to keep on, to move forward. From thumping ballads to electronic glitch, no sound goes unexplored on her new record. It is an icy exploration in refined chaos and controlled madness, an effort to break through capability and access a sonic world that crumbles as it shines.
Supreme psych-drone rockers Wooden Shjips must have figured out that if they traveled any more inward they just might turn themselves inside out. On their third studio album, the Shjips’ trance-inducing drones feel more focused and goal-oriented, cruising on elasticized, fuzz-encrusted guitar and keyboard notes with unwavering determination to reach a destination. The Shjips will likely never land their songs on vampiric TV shows or nighttime soaps, and it’s unlikely they’ll be on “modern rock” radio anytime soon. But we can certainly envision tracks like the swirling and murky “Black Smoke Rise“ and the propulsive “Lazy Bones” on the soundtrack of an edgy Tarantino flick featuring murderous bikers on acid, and we can see the shockingly “peppy” melody of “Looking Out” getting a remix treatment by Trent Reznor for a Jeep commercial. There *are* other places to go with Wooden Shjips’ music besides one’s own navel, and *West* is a fine launching pad.
It’s fitting that *Eye Contact* — the fifth studio album from Gang Gang Dance — found a home on the esteemed 4AD label; after all, some of the imprint’s earliest signings were purveyors of the sort of mystical/global amalgam favored by Gang Gang Dance. After the Brooklyn quartet injected their own unique brand of experimental music with a tougher street vibe — highlighting the electronic over the organic on 2009’s *Saint Dymphna* — here the band polishes the edges to a softer finish, each track flowing easily to the next in a mix of down-tempo beats, Bollywood melodies and Middle Eastern-inflected rhythms. The epic opener “Glass Jar” is a fantastic intro to the journey ahead, morphing from a fluttering, primordial space-trip to a climactic landing, a splash-down against an intense palette of sunset color and galactic promise. One of the most muscular tracks, the breathless “MindKilla,” has been given the remix treatment by his royal highness, Lee Scratch Perry, and is well worth seeking out.
Toronto trio Austra works with a simple synth/drum/bass palette, rooted in the ‘80s sounds farmed both by commercial bands like Depeche Mode and a number of artists in the 4AD stable. Katie Stelmanis’ remarkable, lightly tremeloed voice has an ethereal quality, with a dark spirit and a lost-soul plaintiveness that is sturdier than, say, Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser. (The band has covered Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” a tune well suited to Stelmanis’ voice.) Synths are the core of Austra’s sound — they gurgle and purr (albeit, darkly and often fuzzily) when in dance mode, glide and glisten and glare in atmospherics mode; the crisp, skeletal drums of Maya Postepski and Dorian Wolf’s understated bass are the sturdy armature around which the tunes swirl. A song like “Beat and the Pulse” puts the band clearly in the electronica arena — it’s quiet, cool, slightly foreboding and sensual. But tracks like “Lose It” belie an ear for pop-dom, with a trilling, sing-along chorus and appealing — dare we say “happy” — dance beat. If you are utterly enchanted with Stelmanis’ (classically trained) voice, seek out her previous solo work.
