This is the least modern sounding new release of the year. Rick Tomlinson's Voice of the Seven Woods creates druggy, foreign sounding psychedelica that sounds like it was performed 30 years ago in some unknown, possibly mythical, land. The ten pieces exemplify all that is good about the guitar and all that is holy about music.
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Alongside D'arcangelo's recent Eksel, this eagerly awaited new album from the well-regarded producer has rekindled my appreciation and even my passion for chin-scratching, toe-tapping IDM.
Robert Pollard's Circus Devils are back with their fifth album and I cannot say it does much for me. There is some solid rock on this disc but ham-fisted lyrics and a few too many guitar clichés make the album tough to listen to more than a couple of times. For every good piece of music there is a set of accompanying lyrics that completely alienate the listener. I have a strong sense that more thought was put into making incomprehensible lyrics than making fully-formed songs in any shape or form.
A full year after the release of Melody Mountain, a holistically flawed but nonetheless bewitching covers record, this entrancing chanteuse apprehensively steps a little closer to the spotlight's glare with this consummate work of understated, rare beauty.
This album was a hard one to get, but when I did, I was blown away. It is dense and flowery: a striking transistion from Caribou's earlier style, but still definitley sounds like Caribou. Andorra is a big move forward for Dan Snaith.
The murky artwork of this disc is a perfect metaphor for the contents, it is a hazy miasma of lo-fi electronic distortion, random sounds, hidden organic instrumentation, and bleak noisescapes.
A cross-generational collaboration between these two giants of the world of esoteric sound manifests itself exactly as would be imagined, and for the listener who is willing to give it the close attention it requires, there are great rewards.
