Review: Bonobo – Black Sands (Ninja Tune)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

Another new electronic review for you that I wrote for Blurt. Bonobo’s latest smells like mid-’90s acid jazz, but it tastes much, much better.

Bonobo (presumably known as Simon Green to his mother), has crafted a triumph of a new album. On Black Sands, the producer/musician has combined the sounds of forward-thinking electronic music and moody acid jazz into an orgy of slinky live and programmed instruments. These aren’t the typical downbeat instrumentals you used to hear in the background of VW commercials. This is exciting, vibrant, electric production that doesn’t necessarily require a close listen, but rewards you if you do decide to pay special attention.

The album’s opener, “Kiara,” (it is actually preceded by “Kiara Prelude,” but it’s really all one song) features beautifully cinematic strings flaring up over an icy electro beat, a perfect example of what Bonobo is able to achieve here. From there, “Kong” takes a decidedly more organic approach, with a fairly traditional jazz construction anchored by a swinging breakbeat.

Let’s stop right here with the descriptions, because without listening to the actual music, this kind of sounds like run-of-the-mill mid’90s trip-hop. It isn’t.Black Sands, whether frantically intertwining guitar and bass riffs (“We Could Forever”) or taking a breather with the excellent singer Andreya Triana doing her thing over a smoky vamp, is a success. Kudos to Bonobo for being able to resurrect acid jazz, rightfully written off by many as boring and dead, and breathe some vibrant new life into it.

Review: Cobblestone Jazz – The Modern Deep Left Quartet (K7)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

I know, I know, deep house, techno… blech. But seriously, Cobblestone Jazz’s latest is good. Read my review for Blurt or check it out below.

Judging by their name, Canadian quartet Cobblestone Jazz would have you think you’re in for an improvisational, free-spirited musical experience. The group’s new album, The Modern Deep Left Quartet, however, is a soulful but meticulously planned out mixtape-style excursion into deep house and techno. It’s not exactly jazz, but the group does manage to infuse a sometimes-austere genre with a great deal of heart and warmth.

Occasionally, the album does come close to the realm of acid jazz, or at least flirts with lithe, jazzy licks (see “Sun Child”). But it’s the darker moments that really shine through, such as the fast-paced descending bassline of “Mr. Polite.” Similarly, “Cromagnon Man” veers away from the blissed-out smoothness of much of the album into Krautrock territory, bringing harsh, stabbing electro bass over a minimal 4/4 beat. “Fiesta” is also a standout track, another dark techno beat repetitively pulsating but never falling into tedium.

Cobblestone Jazz toe the line between icy acid techno and deep house, showcasing the best of both worlds in the process. It’s good to hear some talented producers infusing life into a genre that so easily goes stagnant.

Review: Black Francis – NonStopErotik (Cooking Vinyl)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

Pixies‘ frontman Black Francis’s latest is a decent effort, but nowhere near his greatest output. Read my review for Blurt or below.

The dust from the mid-2000s Pixies reunion has long since settled, but Black Francis/Frank Black/Charles Thompson keeps making records, deterred by neither nostalgia nor cash flow. This is mostly a good thing, as he recently proved with Grand Duchy, a dark, ‘80s-tinged project with his wife.NonStopErotik, however, while recorded with the charming, no-frills, one-take urgency of much of his late-‘90s work, pleasantly chugs along without gaining any real speed or traction.

Francis is joined by longtime collaborator Eric Drew Feldman, who laces tracks like the softer “O My Tidy Sum” and the floating “Rabbits” with a bed of ethereal keyboards that mark this is some of Francis’ lightest work of the past few years. “Wild Son” is a straight-up Doors rip-off, an interesting but distracting song that feels out of pace with the rest of the album. But he flips the script in an unexpected and welcome move by infusing the Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Wheels” with a driving rock beat and distorted guitars, making it more Ramones than lazy country rock. “Dead Man’s Curve” finds Francis releasing cathartic, throaty howls over a trad-rock chord progression, further showcasing his love affair with the roots of rock and roll and his faith in the ability of a couple of layered guitars a drum kit to move the crowd. That’s when the album reaches its simple peaks of pleasure, when it pogos minimally to power chords on songs like “Six Legged Man,” one of the best tunes on the record.

Still, taken in the context of his lengthy and mostly admirable catalogue,NonStopErotik doesn’t rank up there with Francis’ best. “When I Go Down On You” may tinker with the cryptic Freudian psychosexual drama he repeatedly dealt with in the Pixies, but the album’s visceral appeal lies in Stratocasters, not coitus. That being said, Black Francis running on half a tank still sounds better than most bands gunning at full throttle.

Review: We Are Wolves – Invisible Violence (Dare to Care)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

Montreal’s We Are Wolves fuse electro and punk rock effortlessly, and their new album shows why this can still be a good idea. Read my review for Blurt or check it below.

We Are Wolves’ last album, 2007’s Total Magique, was an exciting whirlwind of electro-tinged punk rock, even if it relied a bit heavily on gimmicky synth warbles. The Montreal trio’s latest however, Invisible Violence, finds the band advancing their sound in terms of texture and arrangement, while also borrowing from classic rock guitar sounds. Mechanically throbbing, minimal drum beats and synth bass remain intact over the course of the album’s twelve tracks, but the band’s shrill guitar sounds scream out courtesy of simple and hard-rocking power chords and lead riffs, at times recalling The Kinks (“Paloma”) or The Ramones (“Holding Hands”).

We Are Wolves, at heart, are a relatively uncomplicated band, latching onto a riff, repeating it, utilizing the power of repetition that is at the core of so much good pop and punk. This is recognition of the band’s ability, though, not disparagement. And on Invisible Violence, the Wolves push this formula further. The melancholy “Dreams” begins ballad-like, before re-launching into a bittersweet, fast-paced love song of sorts about a dream of “you and me in a house.” Alexander Ortiz’s vocals are flat but layered and appealing, although he seems to be doing his best Ozzy imitation on “Vague.” One of the record’s best tracks and centerpiece, “Reaching For the Sky,” is built upon an undulating new-wave synth pattern that skirts the line between punk and techno. At about the three-and-a-half minute mark, after a proggy synth solo, most of the instruments drop out leaving the pattern on repeat before the band jumps back into the fray.

We Are Wolves vibrantly fuse together the best elements of old-school punk and new-school electro. They are one of the few survivors of this nearly decade-old trend to continue to successfully do so and make it sound fresh and interesting. Even if you think you’ve heard it before, you haven’t heard it quite like this.

Review: Fredrik – Trilogi (The Kora Records)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ 2 Comments

I’m sick today, but I’m mustering up enough energy to tell you this – the new Fredrik album sure is pretty. Read my review for Blurt or below.

Fredrik’s latest album, Trilogi, is full of delicate, precise, particular music. It’s sweet and pretty without being cloying or pretentious, and the arrangements are cinematic and textured without becoming too grandiose or overly expansive. The duo, comprising its namesake, Fredrik, and multi-instrumentalist Lindefelt, create music that sounds beyond the ways and means of two Swedish guys working on their own. These songs sound like they could only be fleshed out by an orchestra, or at least a large ensemble, wrapping guitars, samples, programming, brushed drums, and a variety of other instruments meticulously around each other.

Many of the album’s tracks are instrumentals. But when Fredrik’s mellifluous tenor floats in over the mix, as on “Ava,” a free-spirited song that remains propulsive by way of a soft electronic backbeat, the music goes from atmospheric to clever and emotive pop. The general atmosphere is hushed and library-like, but the constant details and changes in tone that occur throughout each song render even the most careful moments appealing. There is a lot going on in every track, although the two musicians don’t allow their ideas to get away from them. Sometimes, however, they find their pace in simplicity. “Milo” is such a moment, a lo-fi chamber-pop piece that recalls baroque classical music through its instrumentation and melodic through-line.

Fredrik’s musical rallying cry, such as it is, is eclectic, skillful, and full of subtly impressive moments of harmonious reverie. Trilogi‘s success lies in making blissed-out Scandinavian pop built upon a myriad of feelings and melodies difficult to reduce to any one concept.

Review: The Knife/Planningtorock/Mt. Sims – Tomorrow, In A Year (Rabid/Mute)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ 2 Comments

The Knife’s latest release, the music for an experimental opera called Tomorrow, In A Year, is definitely not for everyone – even if you are, like me, a diehard Knife fan. That being said, it’s still worth a gander. Read my review for Blurt or check it out below.

At first blush, the concept appears to make perfect sense: The Knife, along with musicians Mt. Sims and Planningtorock and theater group Hotel Pro Forma, score an opera inspired by the life and times of Charles Darwin called Tomorrow, In A Year (Rabid/Mute). Upon listening to the soundtrack release, it soon becomes evident however that this is music most likely best enjoyed during the performance of the actual opera. In other words, some visuals would go a long way towards making these avant-garde, highly experimental, electronic arias and librettos slightly more palatable.

Tomorrow, In A Year’s 90 or so minutes opens appropriately with “Intro,” a series of blips and glitchy electronic twitches that are supposed to represent the earliest spasms of life. From there, “Epochs” provides a throbbing, ambient, bass-filled bottom-end over which vocalist Kristina Wahlin unintelligibly (in Swedish, perhaps?) warbles lyrics like, “The animal carcasses and skeletons would be entombed / A step formed terrace succession.” Take that, intelligent designers! “Upheaved” is just as bizarre and radical, but it’s given some form by the staccato stabbing of syllables sung by Wahlin and Laerke Winther: “Con-stant earth-quakes / The won-der-ful for-orce…” Throughout, the music is occasionally recognizable as the work of The Knife, one of the most innovative and appealing purveyors of dark electronic pop working today. “Variation of Birds,” comprised of several minutes of shrieking feedback-style noise, may have more in common with a band like Wolf Eyes. But The Knife’s fingerprints are all over “Colouring of Pigeons,” a mid-tempo orchestral pop track that begins with dislocated vocal sounds and culminates in Karin Andersson’s eerily effective singing. This could just have easily been on outtake from last year’s Fever Ray album (or from Simon Le Bon’s 1980s Arcadia project).

It might prove hard for anyone but the most diehard Knife fans to sit through an entire album of this music (besides the breezy, buoyant techno of a track like “Seeds”). But it’s evident that those involved have succeeded in creating something unique and boldly experimental while still adhering to the basic tenants and form of opera. The technique and instrumentation differ wildly from the norm (if there is such a thing nowadays), but at its core Tomorrow, In A Year goes through all the paces of this form of dramatic storytelling.