Infinite: Bad – Track Review

By subverting their established sound with something wholly unexpected the boys of Infinite might have served up one of the year’s best K-Pop tracks!

A few days ago I wrote a post about a few different things that had caught my eye in the world of K-Pop over the past week. One of those was Infinite’s impending comeback: the teasers whetted my appetite and I was quite excited to hear the full track. Now, when a K-Pop teaser gets me that hyped-up it usually takes me a while to get to grips with and enjoy the actual track when it’s finally released. Thoughts of “This is a great song” often collide with others like “what the hell has this got to do with the teaser?” and “is this even the same track?”. It says a lot about Bad, then, that I was instantly bowled over, I’ve had it on repeat since it dropped a few hours ago and there have been no nagging thoughts and no disappointment.

Little Boots: Working Girl – Album Review

Since Little Boots released her fantastic second album Nocturnes in 2013 I’d been hoping for a follow up that would maintain that album’s string of superlative, nostalgic pop songs. With the release of the Business Pleasure EP late last year Boots offered a taste of her third LP and, judging from those four songs, it seemed like LP number three would be her best work yet, not only equalling but exceeding what she’d already given us. As other tracks from the album have slowly emerged that early assumption has only become more of a certainty. Now that the album is upon us (out this Friday, July 10th, and streaming in full now) I’m happy to report that the criminally under-appreciated Little Boots has once again delivered an album that is a strong contender for the year’s best pop-album – maybe even the best album outright.

Charli XCX: True Romance – Album Review

Disclaimer: I feel I should point out that this was written back in 2013, before Charli XCX had big hits with Icona Pop and Iggy Azalea (and a few of her own songs, of course). Obviously a lot has changed in that time but I’m not going to go through this review and rewrite any allusions to her relative obscurity. Basically, all information was true at the time of writing.

If you’ve followed Charli XCX’s career you may have, like me, been worried this album would never surface. Her first work, released in 2008 when she was just 16 years of age, consisted of a few single releases and an album that never saw commercial release. 2011 saw a resurgence in activity with features on tracks from other artists, including Alex Metric, followed by two single releases – eventual singles for True Romance – and several mix-tapes released sporadically throughout 2012. The release of new material in December 2013 – following her début album by just 8 months – is a sign that the True Romance may have been gathering dust in anticipation for its release. By the time that release date finally arrived in April 2013  I was thoroughly convinced it would bear all the hallmarks of most albums that are stuck in development hell – essentially, I expected a selection of overproduced, written-by-committee tracks that hopelessly chased the pop trends of the last few years. I needn’t have worried.

M.I.A. Matangi – Album Review

Just before the release of her 3rd album, MAYA, in 2010 M.I.A. seemed like an artist at the top of her game: Her single Paper Planes had shot up charts worldwide leading to Grammy nominations, a performance at the Grammy awards with a who’s who of modern-rap – whilst heavily pregnant – and  her collaborations with A.R. Rahman on the soundtrack to the massively successful Slumdog Millionaire led to an Oscar nomination. The music world couldn’t wait to see what she would do next. Her début LP Arular was a unique and creative explosion of colour unlike anything around at the time and the follow up, Kala, was equally indefinable: M.I.A. paired the fun of her first album with more diverse world music tones and emerged as an artist who had something to say (see 20 Dollar) without losing her sense of fun (see XR2). But want went wrong?

Approaching MAYA’s release the press focussed on a controversial interview with The New York Times and the album’s release did little to end the polarization of opinion. The music, for the first time in her career, didn’t sound entirely unique and when it did it seemed forced and experimental on a purely superficial level – it certainly did not demand the rewarding repeated-listens her previous albums warranted. The only issue that seemed to unite the critics was that the mixed-bag of music was ill-supported by lyrics that were derided as politically naive, perhaps even verging on paranoid (see The Message).

Now, three years later, M.I.A. returns with her fourth album, the eponymous Matangi. So what’s changed?

Goldfrapp: Tales of Us – Album Review

Goldfrapp are a bit of an oddity in my music collection: despite being a big lover of synthpop and electro my favourite of their albums is the more subtle début album: Felt Mountain; where the electronic soundscapes sit aside lush acoustic arrangements.

Early signs indicated that Tales of Us, their sixth release, could be harking back to that album; the only album of theirs, in my opinion, that has a truly original sound. Compared to their last release, 2010’s 80’s pop pastiche Head First, this album is closer to their début sound, and probably closer than any of their other albums too. The simple guitar and piano arrangements of Drew and Alvar are undercut by sinister string arrangements that add a simultaneously grandiose and unsettling atmosphere that recalls Felt Mountain tracks like Horse Tears and Human. 

Fuck Buttons: Slow Focus – Album Review

Of all the albums I listened to in 2013 this was, of the ones I loved, my least listened to, one where I didn’t felt the need to read every interview the artist did or go out and buy all of their other albums. Most of the albums I really rated in that year where by artists that I had been a long-time fan of and, for those I wasn’t already a fan of, I certainly became one. But this album, which I’d listened to maybe five times, was my first and only brush with F**k Button’s music and, even to me, was a surprising choice for my “Album of The Year” in 2013.

MFBTY: The Cure – Album Review

I am wary of calling this a K-pop album because even I, with my limited knowledge of k-hip-hop and K-rap, now that Tiger JK and Yoon Mi-rae are pretty much the king and queen of that scene. I won’t speak for Bizzy as I know nothing about him but, judging by the company he keeps, I think we can assume he is up there too. As reluctant as I am to calling it a K-pop album I think that’ll give me the best chance of explaining why this was on my “best of 2013” list. On the surface it looks and sounds like a Kpop album: it’s pretty short, there are a variety of styles, and the title track could even fill the role of the obligatory ballad. Its sound, especially on the dance track Sweet Dream, its remix Go, and the album opener Beautiful Life, is more pop than hip-hop.

Laurel Halo: Chance of Rain – Album Review

Release Date: 28.10.2013

Label: Hyperdub

Disclaimer: This is going to be a review of all of Laurel Halo’s releases since Quarantine but I will be focussing on the LP Chance of Rain.

Since releasing her full length début, Quarantine (an album that jostled with Grimes’ Visions and Bat For Lashes’ The Haunted Man for the top spot on my albums of 2012 list), Laurel Halo went on to release a single, Sunlight on the Faded at the tail end of 2012, and an EP, Behind the Green Door in may 2013, before this, her second full length record.

Sunlight on the Faded contained the same rich melodies and raw unprocessed vocals of her début LP but unlike that effort it had distinct beats. When beats made an appearance on Quarantine, like in opener Airsick, they were a distant rumble in the sonic backdrop, scenery that didn’t detract from the melodies and lush synth sounds taking centre stage. On Sunlight On The Faded the drums were a prominent element but they were rhythmic and percussive, a far cry from the pounding four to the floor beats that dominated the bass frequencies on Behind the Green Door and latest album Chance of Rain.

Boards of Canada: Tomorrow’s Harvest – Album Review

Tomorrow’s Harvest is the fourth major studio album from Scottish electronic duo Boards of Canada, and it is their first full-length since 2005. I’d heard bits and pieces of their previous albums and found them enjoyable but this was the first BoC album that I’d listened to in full. Tomorrow’s Harvest, unlike a lot of modern albums, benefits greatly from being listened to in its entirety as an album and though it is fairly long it is, minus a few tracks, well worth it.

Tomorrow’s Harvest is a set of creeping, almost ambient tracks that fit together cohesively to create a distinctive and absorbing listening experience. Some of the songs stick in the mind more than others; the tribal bounce of Palace Posy, the chilled melodies of Nothing is Real, and the foreboding Come to Dust hold some of the album’s most tuneful moments; but it is not an album that you can really pick and choose favourites from.

Jon Hopkins: Immunity – Album Review

This is an album full of contradictions for me. I feel, at least in part, that it is a little pretentious and contrived. I’m not sure why I feel that way but I have this nagging feeling that it is a very calculated collection of tracks. However, its sound is unique and, even if you’ve heard Hopkins’ work before this release, it is a sound that seems to have leapt from his mind fully-formed. There are also some beautiful moments on the album and it, for my money, was one of the most cohesive albums of 2013.