With much uninspired R&B cannibalism from a generation, and generalization based on American Idol idolization, is it any wonder that the most innovative, reverent soul album of 2005 comes from left field? Here it is: Multiply, the first solo full-length in five years from Jamie Lidell, one half of oddball…
Until recently, the yin and the yang, ancient Taoist symbols that reflect cosmic harmony through two polar opposites, appeared to be merely a convenient graphic design gimmick for Atlanta’s twurkin’ twosome Kaine and D-Roc. But with U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta), the Ying Yang Twins have produced an album that…
Whenever a musical artist has a child, there’s an immediate trepidation among fans that the artist’s next release will be all soft and sentimental. But what if the artist’s music is already plush and complacent? Well then you have J.A.C. , the fourth album by Vienna’s breathy, blunted duo Tosca…
When discussing Japan’s psychedelic/Krautrock-informed collective the Boredoms, the group’s name is usually spoken with reverence. Or perhaps bewilderment. However with Seadrum/ House of Sun — two tracks spanning over 21 minutes, and the band’s first material in five years — boredom is sadly a modifier. “House of Sun” is a…
Caribou is the new moniker of Canadian-born, London-based producer Dan Snaith, formerly known as Manitoba. No cause for alarm: The change was made for legal, not artistic, reasons. The Milk of Human Kindness is a continuation of Snaith’s melodic pulse-anchored, groove-oriented, pressure-cooked beat excursions, except now his inspirations span from…
For the past two decades Erasure has sung of unrequited yearning, producing a sparkling catalogue quickly cited by any advocate of the lush trills, frills, and thrills of synth-pop. The group consists of flamboyant “choirboy” Andy Bell and Vince Clarke, one of electronic music’s true innovators, whose past adventures prior…
In The Fader’s November 2004 issue, Canadian expatriate Leslie Feist describes herself as a cross-pollinator. This is a wholly appropriate summation of the smokily seductive singer. Now living in Paris, Feist has played with fellow Canadians Peaches and Broken Social Scene as well as Norwegians Kings of Convenience. Her sophomore…
Surrounded by Silence? More like surrounded by friends. Roping in Ghostface & El-P (a highlight), Aesop Rock, Camu, Beans, Masta Killa & GZA, Yazu from Blonde Redhead, Beans, and the Books (another highlight), among many others, Scott “Prefuse 73” Herren’s third full-length release is more noteworthy for its lyrical anchors…
“The goal is to make music that makes people hop as much as it hops genres,” states Ian Parton, founder and primary songwriter of Brighton-based sextet the Go! Team. Note the exclamation point in the group’s name, because Parton’s poly-cultural troupe is all about the forceful punctuation. The male/female outfit…
If one were to characterize the fourth full-length from Dadaist beat collagist Daedelus, swooning would be the best summation. Musically Exquisite Corpse drips with aching nostalgia and dustily dips with wistful heartstrings, honeyed woodwinds, and vintage vibraphone, like a Thirties radio play. Guest MCs such as MF Doom, Cyne, and…
While one hails from Ghent, Belgium, and the other from Glasgow, Scotland, the Glimmers (Mo & Benoelie, formerly the Glimmer Twins) and Optimo (JD Twitch & JG Wilkes, named after a Liquid Liquid song) are DJ teams who prove the old adage “two heads are better than one.” Or rather,…
Jane’s Addiction fans reached for the Zeppelin, and Strokes fans uncovered the Velvet Underground. All’s well in geekdom. But now El Paso, Texas outfit the Mars Volta returns with a second full-length, challenging indie rawkers to reference their … King Crimson and Yes albums?!? Frances the Mute is all about…
Tennessee’s Kings of Leon emerged in 2003 wholly and hotly embraced by the Brits, who touted the band as “Southern Strokes,” postpunk without the detachment. And judging by the quartet’s horny panting on Aha Shake Heartbreak, it’s clear Kings of Leon are still crazy from the heat, but that’s more…
Hood, a Leeds-based cast of musicians revolving around brothers Chris and Richard Adams, has been in existence for fourteen years, exhibiting an evolving sound of glitchy, melodic murmurs that bridges the distance between the placid, dubby, yet meticulously dappled broad strokes of Bark Psychosis and Fridge/Four Tet’s prickly psychedelia. Hood’s…
Singer-songwriter/pianist Antony is one of those rare artists who, while not unprecedented, still emerges as singular. Pouring forth an arresting vibrato, his presence is gender-anxious and confrontational in its vulnerability. His fey yet firm poise is quivering, tension fraught, but never engulfingly overwrought. Roping in mentors Lou Reed and Boy…
Once infamously dubbed (s)Low, the decade-old Duluth, Minnesota, trio Low may well flummox you with its seventh album. Whereas its overriding impetus was once plaintive and austere, The Great Destroyer holds firm under the sway of what you’d expect from a tightly coiled lion: menacing and wiry while generating enough…
With songwriting partner Nicolas Fromageau, Frenchman Anthony Gonzales composed 2003’s highly lauded Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, an album of supernal, keyboard-filtered, foot pedal-chipped, postrock hymnals. Fans of My Bloody Valentine, Jean Michel Jarre, and Parisian children’s choirs could all find something to appreciate. Now Gonzales sans Fromageau…
Picking up where his retired “band” Songs: Ohia left off, Jason Molina leads his Magnolia Electric Co. in capturing Big Sky spirit on a live album that snakes through what feels like decades-forged hot licks. Great live albums loom bigger than their source material, and Trials & Errors feels, well,…
It’s amazing math and science majors don’t outnumber metalheads at an average Isis show, as the Boston-born, LA-based quintet’s insistent cadences dovetail with such point-counterpoint precision that it captivates like covalent bonding. Strained bellows and a cascading, gnawing ensemble of guitars and electronics equally flesh and flay atop skewed meters…
Brighton, U.K. band The Go! Team offers eleven deep, custom-carved grooves of retrofitted breakbeat soul and new millennial mashup. Like the Avalanches, this band knows how to layer samples into pumpin’ pastiche while pairing them with scratchy live funk, and the resulting widescreen palate of rhythms ranges from harmonica wailing…
Seattle’s Jeff McIlwane — a.k.a. Lusine, formerly Lusine and Lucine icl. — parlayed his studies in sound design into releasing material equally influenced by minimalist composer Steve Reich and the selected ambient works of Aphex Twin Reich inspired. Anchoring his Serial Hodgepodge melodies are chipped acid (micro) house and helical…
Named for the act of two lesbians sitting, legs outstretched and interlocked, to rub their pussies together, New York’s Scissor Sisters may be just what the “red states” fear most about the coastal “blue states.” After all, as multi-instrumentalist/ bassist/group epicenter Scott “Babydaddy” Hoffman remarks, “It would only take a…
