Here’s how this segment works:
I’ll listen to as many albums as possible throughout the week, break down buzz worthy choices and then stamp them with either; Unripe (intriguing), Ripening (gratifying) or Ripe (choice of the week).
Albums I listened to that I didn’t feel warranted a discussion:
- Big Deal – June Gloom
- Camera Obscura – Desire Lines
- Eleanor Friedberger – Personal Record
- Jon Hopkins – Immunity
- Oblivians – Desperation
- Portugal. The Man – Evil Friends
- Sonny & The Sunsets – Antenna To The Afterworld
- Surfer Blood – Pythons
- Thundercat – Apocalypse
- Queens Of The Stone Age – …Like Clockwork
Boards Of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest
- Released: June 11th, 2013
- For Fans of: Tycho , Bibio or Four Tet .
- The Harvest: Unripe
The most prevalent feature of Tomorrow’s Harvest , which allows it to flow without questioning the decision making, is the fact that Marcus Eoin and Mike Sandison recorded the majority of it alone and isolated. Removed from the problems that arrive from guest features and scheduling issues, but aside from not being subjectively offensive in any matter, ambient music still requires at least some thought provocation, emotion, escape, relaxation, warmth, soul or creativity. There are a handful of those moments, but in general Board Of Canada ’s first album in seven years pulls together nicely. It’s more like a collection of passing interludes.
There’s a sense of ambition on the opening six tracks from the glowing keyboards on ‘ Reach For The Dead ’, atmospheric layering on ‘ White Cyclosa ’, the rich striking ‘ Cold Earth ’ and ‘ Jacquard Causeway ’ that swings together beautifully, in the way of a big production chill-wave bedroom artist could only dream of. Except then BoC falls into territories already occupied by existing artist, by reproducing tracks to less memorable effect.
To be fair, most of those artists such as the minimalist loop king The Field , dense piano toned Tim Hecker , the emotional Eluvium , blissed out keyboards of Tycho or the cold soul of Fennesz careers may been inspired originally by BoC’s classic debut album in 1998 Music Has the Right to Children or timeless singles such as ‘ Dayvan Cowbo y’ on the 2005 album The Campfire Headphone , but they moved on into distinct specialist fields.
Too often tracks such as ‘ Transmission ’, ‘ Collapse ’, ‘ Uritual ’, ‘ Nothing Is Real ’ and ‘ Sundown ’ could pass off as production by a number of artists. They’re answer for new found creativity comes by incorporating live drums – to mixed results; on ‘ Sick Times ’ they tend to clash unevenly, but on ‘ New Seeds ’ they enhance the emotion.
One element that would propel Tomorrow’s Harvest ‘s listening experience, is definitely a pair of high end speakers and a vinyl player, because they’re a several pure, lush, vintage keyboard tones throughout the affair, that alone are worth experiencing.
Gold Panda – Half Of Where You Live
- Released: June 11th, 2013
- For Fans of: Mount Kimbie , Pantha Du Prince or Darkstar .
- The Harvest: Unripe
Earlier this year Gold Panda released a 17 minute EP titled Trust , which drew heavily from the jazz influences of Bonobo and charm sounds of Pantha Du Prince , but instead of just playing the role of an impersonator, he also utilised the EP to exhibit the benefits of varying his arrangements subtly, considerably from his debut album Lucky Shiner .
Unfortunately he doesn’t continue to provide such substantial improvements into new territory on Half Of Where You Live . They’re moments of his signature sharp production on the Chinese influenced ‘ Junk City II ’, the multi-textual ‘ Brazil ’ that masks the tiring vocal sample “ Brazil ” with its elegant percussion and airy dapple beats, ‘ An English House ’ that puts on a display on how to move between dense layers of samples with cohesive transitions and ‘ We Work Nights ’ that glistens, expands and naturally evolves with every beautiful chord stroked.
In between those moments you have ‘ My Father In Hong Kong 1961 ’, which kills momentum because it’s positioned too early in the album for an ambient track. ‘ Communit y’ is a clashing mess of ideas, and ‘ S950 ’ submerges into a different sonic direction – only to never resurface and leave you puzzled as to its inclusion on the album. The scattered pacing of ‘ The Most Livable City ’ and ‘ Enoshima ’ highlights the albums ideological limitations by reworking previous technical ideas with less dazzle or spark.
Derwin Schlecker has a unique sound and proves again he’s still a master craftsman when it comes to textures, but Half Of Where You Liv e milks his ideas dry half way through. He’ll need to go back to the drawing board and approach album number three from a different perspective. Call me crazy, but I could see his techniques collaborating effectively with a rapper such as Danny Brown .
These New Puritans – Field Of Reeds
- Released: June 10th, 2013
- For Fans of: Yo La Tengo , Dirty Beaches or Owen Pallett .
- The Harvest: Unripe
I understand the appeal of These New Puritans , in principal. No pretentious subject matters of another twee indie band, the inclusion of rich instruments and their overall atmospheric matter. All of which should rub off refreshing, instead for most of Field Of Reeds I’m reminded more of – old over used orchestral sounds, that aren’t re-interrupted in any particularly new fashion.
After ‘ This Guy’s In Love With You ’ for fills its standard duties of opening up the affair, my issues start early on ‘ Fragment Two ’ as the track progress or fails to progress. It opens with a pleasant array of piano, violin, pulsing bass drum kicks, Massive Attack drum patterns and a xylophone, but as soon as Jack Barnett ’s vocals slide in underneath, everything feels underwhelming and out of contextual balance.
His weak vocals are more distracting then enhancing on the journey on tracks such as ‘ V (Island Song) ’ that features beautiful music, but is only truly enjoyable in the brief no vocals points. Even the arrangements aren’t new nor presented in a challenging memorable way for the listener – nor the band themselves.
Take an artist such as Tuneyards , who chops up and serves arrangements in a distinct fashion. Most of Field Of Reeds plays off influences of old haunting orchestral pieces from movies. Whether on ‘ Spiral ’ that passes right underneath you, ‘ Nothing Else ’ that builds entirely the same as ‘ The Light In Your Name ’ previously did or ‘ Dream ’ that features jazz musician Elisa Rodrigues , but even she can’t save the tired formula by this point.
‘ Organ Eternal ’ however had the potential to be a signature track, with its slightly faster past, engaging keyboard loop, dramatic car squelching in a car park noises that provide an interesting texture contrast and leap off the page. Unfortunately these waves of intrigue on the 4th and 5th listens wear off and the tracks lack of diversity, give you the feeling you’ve already heard the song 20 times by now.
They’re deep tone moments that are richer in production than Dirty Beaches recent album Drifters/Love Is The Devil of also old movie soundtrack influences, but at least they still have Alex Zhang Hungtai vocals up their sleeves for future releases. These Dirty Puritans still have to improve how they incorporate vocals, if at all.
Hyetal – Modern Worship
- Released: June 3rd, 2013
- For Fans of: Lone , Floating Points or F actory Floor .
- The Harvest: Ripening
I wasn’t impressed enough with last week’s releases to pull together a full The Harvest: Vol , but that wasn’t going to stop me from including Bristol producer Hyetal ’s second album Modern Worship in this week’s edition.
The Lone similarities pop up – texturally a lot throughout Modern Worship ’s 46 minutes run, the main difference is where Lone zigzags in an unsettling, yet enjoyably adventurous fashion. Hyetal has a niche formula that works and he sticks to it. Although not as diverse, he more than makes up for it with consistent hooks.
Built around thick drum beat driven melodies, songs such as ‘ Forefather ’ that’s layered, frenetic and naturally fluid all at the same time, ‘ The City Is Ours ’ that’ll makes you start drumming on your thighs, the post-punk drum beat driven ‘ Playing The Game ’ that again progresses naturally, almost like a rave version of an early career Daft Punk track, ‘ Lake River ’ with its Factory Floor drumming influence washed in waves of descending keyboard hooks. This constant striking clash between the drums and heavy distinct layered hooks is a relentless an engaging ride, without sounding messy or too crowded.
He even takes the journey to another level on ‘ Northwest Passage ’, starting with a double kick drum that carries the rhythm to the climatic high scale keyboard play that isn’t looped but rather let loose after half an album of tension. Then after being separated by the slower ‘ Left ’ with charming dissolving vocals to break up the album, again he bursts back with ‘ Moving Statues ’ emotive melting melody, that’s an exciting take off, gear shift – after gear shift as it catches you off guard by not messing around with tension and reaching straight for the release.
After the albums faultless – high energy first two-thirds, he decides to move away from his strengths. Its unfortunate; as he either re-works ideas previously heard or simply doesn’t bring any new ideas to his impressive arsenal. ‘ Lovers ’ is a borderline drum n’ bass song that uses energy over substance as a band like Does It Offend You Yeah? would. ‘ Jam The Network ’ returns the drum beat led formula only to sound like a b-side outside of the short bursts of noises. ‘ 1000 Lights ’ has all the fundamental elements of a repeatable track, but vocal decision to sing directly on top of the chords in the chorus is the albums first unnatural moment and regression in flow.
Those moments could have been masked as tension for a climatic finish with ‘ Four Walls ’, only for its clicking track noise to distract you constantly from a track that wasn’t playing to his strengths anyway, but those final tracks a side, there is more than enough magic throughout this explosion of sounds to keep you coming back for more.
Jagwar Ma – Howlin
- Released: June 10th, 2013
- For Fans of: Tame Impala , Primal Scream or The Stone Roses .
- The Harvest: Ripe
Often the albums you remember the most are the albums you didn’t realise at the time you needed, until you heard it. Sure, Jagwar Ma ’s (from Sydney) Psychedelic, danceable, Britpop sounds have been around for years (in parts), but fusing them all together with such simplicity and confidence hasn’t.
Take ‘ Uncertainty ’ that’s rather a basic arrangement, but is carried by this natural Primal Scream flow of back-up harmonies and a swagger groove that just makes you want to move regardless or the pure enjoyment during the chorus of ‘ That Loneliness ’. Then the musicianship improves on ‘ The Throw ’ with a combination of catchy guitar riffs, smooth bass lines and heavy percussion – that’s not in a rush to impress you, but rather soak into you slowly, until the track breaks out into a dance remix of itself.
This melting of sounds trick towards the end of tracks is used several times to enhancing effects on swing influenced ‘ Come Save Me ’ after featuring several hooks, it breaks into a loop out effect, with just enough variation to keep you interested. Again on the Utah Saints influenced ‘ Exercise ’ that’s a continuation of ‘ Man I Need ’ that’s built around a riff (very similar to the one found on The Stone Roses -’ Fools Gold’ ) and holds all the key glowing features of the albums first half hits, but the poor rudimentary lyricism throughout the chorus by Gabriel Winterfield lets it down and it isn’t the only questionable chorus. ‘ Let Her Go ’ also suffers from vibing like an Oasis – slightly out of tune b-side.
Jono Ma also makes a questionable decision with the inclusion of the Orbital influenced ‘ Four ’, that builds off ‘ Come Save Me ’ – only to speed up, drag and spin out towards the conclusion. Speaking of the conclusions, Howlin structurally only warrants ‘ Did You Have To ’ or ‘ Backwards Berlin ’ as the conclusive track, because their undeceive, stagnated pacing, only draws attention to the duo’s songwriting limitations when faced with incorporating diversity.
Don’t let my criticisms put you off though, because the first half of this album is as light, playful, and accessible as any album so far this year. Howlin carries the same track marks as Cut Copy and Tame Impala ‘s impressive Australian debut albums that were only let down by directional choices on both albums back halves – choices both groups tinkered out after touring the albums.
WORDS BY Marcus Rimondini
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