Al bums 08/10
Peepholes Overspill (Upset The Rhythm) By Daniel Dylan Wray. In stores Dec 3 Upset the Rhythm is seemingly the place to be for oddball sleaze pop. Like last year’s glorious release from John Maus, Peepholes’ debut album is as drenched in pulsating and sparkling snyths as it is character, charm and idiosyncrasy.The electronics oscillate, throb and judder through ‘The Overspill’ with a menace and beauty that the Brighton duo’s previous mini album ‘Caligula’ didn’t quite manage. Since then, Katia Barrett’s affected vocals have become even more fulfilling, here a continuation of experimentation, animalistically yelping and screaming, forcing out drones and turning into plaintive and scenic tones in quick succession.Where they and Nick Carlisle’s wheezing analogue synth are going is ultimately to the album’s finale – eight songs of nine really are steps to a whole new world altogether. At almost fifteen minutes long, ‘Living in Qatar’ is another kind of noise pop spaceship, charged, eloquent and a brilliant sonic biosphere with a subtle nihilism and industrialism that lurks throughout it, creeping and prowling in the shadows. Lying somewhere between John Carpenter, Suicide and Animal Collective at their most experimental, it is a monumental end to the record and, in many senses, a full record in itself, exploring landscapes, unfolding itself in parts with the beauty and scope of a three-hour film.
08/10
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Serafina Steer
Memory Tapes
The Moths Are Real
Grace/Confusion
(Stolen) By Amy Pettifer. In stores Jan 7
(Carpark) By Reef Younis. In stores Dec 3
It isn’t easy being a girl with a harp; forced at every interview to explain your affinities with other female artists of similar spectral charm. On this record, however, Serafina Steer seems keen to explore the full grit, flesh and edges of the music generated from the mastery of her instrument and the fertile corners of her lyrical mind. The moths aren’t part of a whimsical dream, they’re real, thank you very much. Jarvis Cocker, a long-standing champion of Steer’s work, acts as producer and succeeds in foregrounding a singular performance, his touch resonating with the most quintessentially English corners of Steer’s oeuvre – intimate storytelling of the urban pastoral, gloriously sung in the kind of crystal-cut lilt that no doubt charmed Cocker into collaborating with Charlotte Gainsborough. Classically lush folk rounds are underscored with drum pads, assonant rhythm and disco throb while Steer’s confident voice weaves twinkling, sonorous tales that sound like they should be animated in stop-motion.A deep and curious joy.
NZCA/Lines and Chromatics set the bar extremely high for beautifully constructed, sumptuously produced pop this year, but Dayve Hawk has transcended the challenge.The six tracks on this third LP are a blissful maze of spaced-out electronica,West Coast harmonies and an exploratory, melodic drenching.Where ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ slides into an M83 aftermath of dreamy harmonics, ‘Sheila’ simmers in an odd Beach-Boys-meetsFischerspooner-underworld, eschewing basic song structures and throwing up the contrasts.The giggling field recordings and upbeat tempo give ‘Safety’ a saccharine charm and fans of Junior Boys will find a lot to love in the shimmering ‘Follow Me’, but it’s the bleak atmosphere, penetrating krautrock beat and didgeridoo hum of ‘Let Me Be’ that really catches the ear.The darkest side of Memory Tapes gorgeous melancholy, it benevolently puts the danceable discordance into what is a staggeringly good album.
08/10