Chairlift may have the coolest creation story ever. Yes, even better than all that seven days stuff. Formed in 2005, the band originally got together to make background music for haunted houses, which sounds like a pretty good agenda to work to. Continue Reading

James Yuill hails from London and blends folk, electronica and pop into a rather beautiful landscape of sound. There’s plenty of artists currently ploughing this furrow, but Yuill makes it seem a more joyful world to live in. Apart from an identity crisis, he tells us a bit about how it all started…

For people out there that have never heard of you. Give us three reasons why they should…
Because I’ve had four number ones, my 1986 album ‘Slippery When Wet’ sold in excess of 26 million copies and it set the record for the most weeks for a hard rock album at #1 on the Billboard 200… oh no… wait that’s Bon Jovi… there’s no reason why people should have heard of me.

Can you recall the moment when you first decided you wanted to become a musician?
I think it was when I heard Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ for the first time… I knew I wanted to play rock guitar! My aspirations have changed slightly as I’ve grown up.

Where do your songs come from? What’s your inspiration?
I’m not really sure where they come from… my subconscious I guess. I just sit down and sing whatever comes into my head… the first verse done, I then try and work out what I’m on about then steer/force the rest along a similar path.

Name your Top 5 records.
Difficult, but it would have to be…
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
4hero - Creating Patterns
Tasmin Archer - Great Expectations
Jackson and his Computer Band - Smash

What was the first gig you ever played and was it a success?
The first gig in public was at the tunbridge wells forum with my school band. it was a success…but success isn’t always easy on the ear, as we proved.

What one piece of criticism has stuck in your mind and was it justified?
That I have a weedy voice (courtesy of Time Out). I think it was justified.

What one thing has caused you to waste your free time in the past 6 months?
Waiting for MySpace to load/sort it’s problems out.

If you weren’t making music, what do you think you’d be doing?
Audio forensics… long story.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
I once spent a night loading lorries at a factory in North West London. It was a long night shift and apart from an hour break in the middle there was no let up. The parcels would come down this conveyer belt directly into the back of the lorry and if you weren’t fast enough they would build up jam the main package artery. Eventually the break came, but the canteen wasn’t serving food, so all i could have was a Sprite and then back to work. It was also deafening so after one night I never went back. I didn’t even get paid for that night!

We’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five tracks with a theme of your choice.
The theme is people who died too young:
Nick Drake - Time has Told me
Jim Morrison - People are Strange
Jimi Hendrix - Little Wings
Janis Joplin - Move Over
Jeff Buckley - Dream Brother

James Yuill on Myspace

Moshi Moshi are well known for putting out great music created by great bands. Their singles label reached trendsetter status a long time ago, and their album catalog is equally strong. This release from James Yuill, entitled ‘Turning Down Water For Air’ goes a long way to re-enforce the previous statement, itself containing 12 tracks of heartfelt electronica that is very easily accessible and produced to an incredibly high standard. Continue Reading

NYC is Kieran Hebden’s (aka Four Tet) fourth collaboration with veteran jazz drummer Steve Reid and while I won’t pretend that I have heard the other three, the word in the blogosphere is that this is the most equal of their partnerships, with Hebden given much more license to stamp his mark on the record. Certainly fans of Fridge and Four Tet would be foolish to overlook this, a beautiful and intensely atmospheric mini-album. Although I didn’t have the cover artwork to hand at the time of writing it is impossible to listen to NYC and not picture a seething, rain-lashed megatropolis. It’s a murky, cavernous record easily redolent of old Scorcese films: steam rising from man hole covers, pimps lurking in shadows, dealers dealin’ (to borrow from Bobby Gillespie). The percussive energy and gently building tensions and atmospherics make it less wilfully difficult than such jazz-electronica collaborations might lead you to expect. Continue Reading

By now we all should know the genius that is Tom Jenkinson, aka pusher of squares, and by now it has become almost a given that whatever he releases is going to be taking music in a new direction such is his unrivalled ability (have you seen that man play bass! It’s beyond comprehension), and his determination to make music that shifts the map. Along with Aphex Twin, Squarepusher is definitely one of the pioneering forces behind electronic music in the last 10-15 years.

‘Just a Souvenir’ is, as expected, a mish mash of styles that all seem to gel into a twisted cohesion. “This album started as a daydream about watching a crazy, beautiful rock band play an ultra-gig” explains Jenkinson on a quote from his official website. Noticeably he has gone more in an experimental rock direction, but rock as you’ve never heard it. Take Delta V, a lesson in how to riff out on bass, it is a very immediate and in your face. It seems as if Tom is having a jam session, on another planet. The album opens with ‘Star Time 2′; a song that sounds like I’ve landed on Planet Zelda and Sonics spinning the rings. Its as if ‘Red Hot Car’ has morphed into something altogether more funky.

Often Jenkinsons music has suffered from being cold and, at times, too mechanical, chopped and patched together with precision but sometimes lacking soul or trying too hard to be experimental or progressive. Just a Souvenir breaks that tradition with a far more colourful soundscape, leaning to something Daft Punk esque. There are more elements of electro and acid funk, along with his affection for Jazz breaks and a far more heavy rock sound. But as ever there really isn’t a way of describing what Squarepusher does. He defies explanation, logic, and expectation. He has definitely gone for a more melodic sound, even if melodic, in Squarepusher universe, is still some mutant hybrid of a thousand different styles. He’s doing for bass guitar what Hendrix did for guitar. Obviously there’s a massive time difference, but if we juxtapose the innovation of each artist there is a definite path between the two. The groove is definitely there.

Nothing sums up Squarepushers eccentricity more than ‘A Real Woman‘, a track that sounds almost comical; the strange vocal effects are something that Jenkinson has always loved to noodle with, and it makes for an odd listen. It has a child like playfulness to it. This is candy for extreme candy poppers. With every record the square man puts out he dives into new territory and comes out on top, owning and completely realizing new rhythms and vibrations.  Taking on from his last effort Hello Everything but more psychedelic than anything he’s done before I’m wondering how this would work with a head full of hallucinogens - I know I’d be listening to ‘Planet Gear’ over and over. As for ‘The Glass Road’: dark mystical genius. Not only is he a bass terrorist, but he’s a sweet jazz soliloquist. Just have a listen to his classical guitar on album closer ‘Yes - Sequitur’! Yeah we knew he could play guitar, but it’s always nice to mention his skills off the bass.

When I listen to this record first thing I think is where do his ideas come from? How did that rhythm come into being, where is this man from. Middle England or the centre of the universe! There isn’t anybody coming close to doing what Tom Jenkinson does, not only on the bass, but his whole pallet of musical textures, his direction and commitment to experimentation. Just a Souvenir proves that he is top of whatever game he chooses to be in, and he’s so far out of sight that you’ll be blinded.
85%

Squarepusher on Myspace

Victoria and Jacob played, as far as I’m aware, at TLOBF’s very first gig at the Portland Arms in Cambridge the other day. I wasn’t there, and listening to this EP, I wonder how they are as a live act - it’s an intriguing thought which I’m sure several TLOBF staffers could now enlighten me on.

V&J’s sound is a twinkling, light, but affecting one - “Clash” is slightly disappointing in a sense that it isn’t about a seminal punk outfit, but satisfies in every other respect. Victoria’s voice soars over a simplistic synthetic beat and a insistent drone, with glockenspiel, odd rattling sounds and acoustic guitar taking turns to add their own contributions. “It’s not about apologies”, we hear, “it’s about understanding.” It seems to be a song about inevitability and sealing yourself off from the world when things get tough, but what the hell do I know? At the end, there’s a sound which makes me think of the death throes of a toy robot, which is nice. Continue Reading

Smile Down Upon Us is a collaboration between London based music makers Keiron Phelan and David Sheppard and Tokyo based vocalist MoomLooo. It was a collaboration born through the internet as Phelan Sheppard found Moomlooo through myspace and, after exchanging messages of mutual admiration, a collaboration was born. Continue Reading

Much was made of Jeremey Warmsley’s first outing ‘The Art of Fiction’, and justly so. Warmsley came across as a fresh face with some wonderful melodies and harmonies to share, building layers upon layers to make his highly crafted electronic-pop.  If there was a hint of pretension or  pomposity at  times, it could be given as youthful over eagerness. The success of the record saw him tour with the likes of Regina Spektor, The Shins and Daniel Johnston in the following months. In the meantime his contemporaries such as the Mystery Jets, Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale have gone on to bigger and better things. With ‘How We Became’ Warmsley attempts to follow that path of growth, pulling in Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire/ Bjork) on production duties.

Continue Reading

Juana Molina is an former television actress from Argentina with an unlikely passion for making a kind of cut and paste folk-tinged electronica (look, I managed to do that without saying ‘folktronica’). Molina’s latest album for Domino comprises eight lengthy, carefully assembled pieces with a focus on layered grooves: tightly coiled constructions of looped acoustic guitar, vocal cooing and harmonies, chimes, drones and occasionally the kitchen sink. After the rollicking, revelrous opening title track, Un Dia is sometimes sunny, sometimes sultry and occasionally bleakly nocturnal. Molina’s lo-fi collages are not always immediately arresting, building and subsiding with an unhurried lightness of touch. The likes of ‘Quien? (Suite)’ wake up as gently as a spring morning, dreamy vocal splices interlocking and dovetailing over a persistent almost-house bassline. By contrast ‘Lo Dejamos’ and ‘Los Hongos De Marosa’ are oblique, all murmers and shadowy bass squelches. Continue Reading

I was thwarted in my initial attempts to listen to Fujiya & Miyagi’s (F&M) Lightbulbs. Their previous album, 2006’s Transparent Things, was something of a sleeper hit with me and also, initially at least, avoided my cunning aural attempts. That was an album that fused a whole host of influences into something funky and completely out of tune with what else was coming out of their home town of Brighton. But anyway, back to Lightbulbs. It seems as though in this age of internet leaks and the like, labels are starting to make it difficult for reviewers to actually LISTEN to the music. Put the promo into your computer to rip it for your mp3 player of choice and it crashes. Nice. Stick it in my car to listen to, the stereo goes a bit funny and tells me I’m listening to a CD-ROM. Double nice. So, finally, I’ve had to set time to listen to it on my stereo at home. And now, after a number of afternoons and evenings with a variety of refreshments, I can write something about it…
Continue Reading

Metronomy is Joseph Mount, and in live form, it also includes Gabriel Stebbing and Oscar Cash as support musicians. According to Mount, who has long been a very in-demand remixer, Nights Out, his second album, had its genesis as “a half-arsed concept album about going out and having a crap time”. It’s not entirely clear how much of that concept remains in this finished product - especially given that only half of the tracks have vocals to tell us what they’re about - but perhaps that reference to concept albums is a signal of the intelligent, varied and consistently interesting set of tracks that Nights Out consists of.

The album is sequenced as though it has a concept behind it - “Nights Intro” and “Nights Outro” bookend everything else, and “Back On The Motorway” is titled like a reprise of “On The Motorway”. Curiously, these pairs of tracks actually have very little in common, but despite that the sequencing and titling decisions clearly weren’t accidental. The 7^th of the twelve tracks is even called “Side 2″, and is draped in vinyl-esque crackling and hiss. Continue Reading

I saw Bloc Party live at the O2 Arena in February. It wasn’t really their gig - in fact I’d mostly gone to see Manic Street Preachers, who had won NME’s Godlike Geniuses award and were being supported by Kele Okereke’s men, among others. Despite their third billing at the gig, Bloc Party rose to the occasion and put on a superb performance which helped really kick things off after a disappointing earlier performance by The Cribs. They seemed like a band on top of their game - they had all their best songs from both Silent Alarm and A Weekend In The City in their arsenal, and even the slightly odd one-off single “Flux” sounded awesome in live form. The future seemed to belong to them. Continue Reading

It’s a crazy world this business we call music; we’ve had the Radiohead pay what you want, the Prince stick it on a newspaper, the NIN give it away and even the Cliff Richard bid-up.tv model and now make way for the most honest way of releasing a record in the world…

The “price at what the artist thinks it’s worth” - the ‘Minotaur Shock’!

Minotaur Shock, aka Bristolian David Edwards, purveyor of electronic tunes, has painstakingly rated each track on his third album Amateur Dramatics and you pay what he reckons each track is worth - measured on technical difficulty, musical difficulty, extra musicians, computer crashing and other considerations.

You can pick and choose from tracks ranging from 33p to 75p, or even buy the whole thing for (the accumulative) £6.41.

It’s all here: www.minotaurshock.com

And there’s an extensive and rib-tickling run-down through each tracks rating…

While you can buy direct from www.minotaurshock.com, the album is also available from iTunes and Boomkat.com (who sell high quality MP3s (320kbps) and FLAC/lossless files).

Interestingly-named Manchester band Working For A Nuclear Free City haven’t produced a conventional double album here. What Businessmen & Ghosts really consists of is the entirety of the band’s self-titled début album, the majority of the Rocket EP, and also new material. At a whopping 29 tracks and almost an hour and 45 minutes long, this is a comprehensive rather than bite-sized introduction to the band’s music.

Like the vaguely similar project that was Use Your Illusion, the 1991 kind-of double album by Guns N’ Roses, Businessmen & Ghosts is very much a mixed bag rather than a coherent, focused album. In fact, this lack of focus and inconsistency in terms of style and quality is the main gripe that emerges from the album. When WFANFC are at their best though, they’re very good. At times “Innocence” sounds like the soundtrack to a hip 70s muscle car or blaxploitation film – all cool beats and funky wicky-wah guitars. This is a band that can convey such cool, when they set their mind to it. Continue Reading