This is pop music from Britain and on top of its game. Awesome quality music production and nice hooks without the usual annoyances of mainstream pop. And this one’s a debut album so double the surprise.
Until the Ribbon Breaks – A Lesson Unlearnt
Janelle Monáe – The Electric Lady
I listen to a very little amount of pop music so it’s no surprise that I am a late comer to take a bow for this album that was released in 2013. However I just cannot not put this one up here and note that this is what exceptional pop music sounds like. All those r&b “superstars” should stand in line to learn some tricks here. Featuring of Prince and Erykah Badu is powerful of course, but the record as a whole is way more that that, and with many faces of many genres beyond r&b.
Witch – Witch: We Intend to Cause Havoc!
Psychedelic rock and blues from Zambia in the ‘70s. Wait, what? I still have to read upon this whole topic because it sounds extremely exciting, even more so since the music is just dope. For now all I can say is that there is this box set with 4 CDs and 6 LPs and the full catalog of the band, 54 songs, almost 4 hours of material. And pure gold.
Future – Horizons
You can identify Future by being the other band of Christian Bland from The Black Angels. Some say it’s cold and dark and shoegaze noise pop. I say it is another great goth meets no-wave revival thing. Great atmosphere all over. I usually don’t provide links but this one is not easy to search so here’s the album on Bandcamp.
I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn blackI wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted black
Bristol – Bristol
Marc Collin of Nouvelle Vague created an album with covers of some trip-hop classics. Nice collection, mostly okay covers, slow and moody, nostalgic, sweet-and-sorrow.
I wrote previously about the RGB|CMY Kinetic installation and now I stumbled upon a video of it on my phone. It is hard to describe and better to see.
A few final notes on Sónar Barcelona 2015.
I listened to my first live set of Chemical Brothers at the by Night sessions. And it was boring, thus disappointing. The whole show and visuals were bad-ass, some single tracks were great, but the whole experience as a complete set was dull and without much imagination. With this back catalog of sounds and also the great new tracks (like GO, which I am totally hooked on for a while now) this output was just way weak.
On the other hand FKA Twigs was cute as hell and professional, too. She has an amazing voice and was so adorably honest with her whole attitude on stage. She stood on that huge podium on her own but did not run around much to fill the space but mostly stood in the middle, moved with minimal but exciting choreography and poured her soul into the music. The whole thing was sincere.
Lastly there was one Flying Lotus who also put on a great set, looking back I am so sorry that I ditched this one soon to see the ChemBros. He had an interesting stage with one canvas pulled up and projected on at the front, and he wore glasses of yellow lights that glowed behind. It was creepy and trippy but looked super cool. And of course the music was just what I could have expected.
Finally I had the chance to listen to Mika Vainio in a live set and it was quite a rewarding experience. Deep, true experimental electronics, well played and engineered, and luckily pushed out on a brilliant sound system. It reorganized some guts in my body and listening equipment in my head at certain points but it was well worth it. Actually I was surprised by how harsh and beatless it was after his work in Pan Sonic and as Ø but then again there were some power noise pieces too with heavy rhythms.
Jimi Tenor & Juri Hulkkonen created a dadaist movie and played an experimental set along with it. It was a surrealist piece with something resembling a storyline but with quite some free associations as well.