Category: Reviews (Page 103 of 200)

BLANCMANGE Wanderlust

22 September 2018 /

Arranged, co-produced and mixed with Benge at the latter’s Memetune Studios in Cornwall, the new BLANCMANGE album ‘Wanderlust’ is focussed on “the pretence of a normal world being erased.”

BLANCMANGE’s first phase produced just three albums ‘Happy Families’, ‘Mange Tout’ and ‘Believe You Me’ before art college friends Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe parted ways amicably in 1987.

But since his 21st Century return in 2011 with ‘Blanc Burn’, frontman Neil Arthur has become possibly the most prolific man in electronic music. ‘Wanderlust’ is the sixth long player of this second phase and all this without including Neil Arthur’s side projects FADER and NEAR FUTURE or the ‘Happy Families Too’ rework.

Beginning with ‘Distant Storm’, this is an unusual but brilliant BLANCMANGE tune with its incessant dance beat, reverberant Moog bassline and dreamy processed vocoder aesthetic; with a rousing, almost spiritual quality, there are even elements of JAMES’ ‘Come Home’ creeping in for good measure. Following on, ‘In Your Room’ is a great slice of vintage cold wave synth, with a vocoder aesthetic and an assortment of manipulated sounds.

The heavily percussive ‘I Smashed Your Phone’ uses noise and electronics to deal with the sensitive issue of domestic abuse, while the amusing ‘Gravel Drive Syndrome’ provides commentary on social climbing and keeping up with the Jones’ aided by an Eno-esque VCS3 joystick solo.

‘Talking To Machines’ deals with Arthur’s continuing love / hate relationship with smart phones and what is now becoming anti-social media, but also as he put it: “this Kafka-esque nightmare just to get to the person you want to talk to.”

Like a sombre Northern English KRAFTWERK, the marvellous metronomic ‘Not A Priority’ also adds the resonance of JEAN-MICHEL JARRE with some chilling string machine; “Be yourself, you can’t be anybody else” Arthur exclaims as Hannah Peel harmonises and counterpoints this marvellous concoction with her soprano stylings.

Inspired by the smarmy Victorian–minded politician and ‘Walter The Softy’ impersonator Jacob Rees-Mogg, the swirly robopop of ‘TV Debate’ captures Arthur’s anger at the state of the nation in a musical cross between PLASTIC ONO BAND and THE FLYING LIZARDS; “I’m creating imagery and now I’ve got politicians doing a conga, it’s a mess!” he reflected to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the song, “We’re a nation who watch cookery programmes but can barely cook!”

Featuring David Rhodes on guitar, the heavier tones of ‘Leaves’, with its looming reverberant textures and discordant reverses, continues the gloomier mood before the Linn and guitar driven resignation of ‘White Circle, Black Space’. And with the aid of some haunting Vox Machina computer voices, the closing bittersweet title track explores the longing to be somewhere else while swathed in Roland vocoder towards the song’s conclusion.

“I’m catching up in what I think is unfinished business” Neil Arthur remarked on his artistic drive, “I’m just in a position where I’m experimenting all the time. I do what I want and it’s a bonus that some people like it.”

Possibly his best body of work as BLANCMANGE in its 21st Century incarnation, Neil Arthur has undoubtedly found comfort from working with Benge on what is effectively their third album together. That comfort has also provided an appealing palette of electronic sounds that acts as a fine platform for his not-so-merry lyrical witticism.

‘Wanderlust’ is released by Blanc Check on 19th October 2018 in CD, vinyl LP and digital formats, available from http://blancmange.tmstor.es/

BLANCMANGE 2018 ‘Wanderlust’ tour includes:

Norwich Arts Centre (1st November), Nottingham Rescue Rooms (2nd November), Cardiff Acapela (3rd November), Bristol The Fleece (4th November), Darwen Library Theatre (7th November), 8 Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms (8th November), Glasgow Oran More (9th November), Newcastle The Cluny (10th November), Brighton The Old Market (15th November), Southampton Brook (16th November), Dover Booking Hall (17th November), Wolverhampton Robin 2 (22nd November), Gloucester Guild Hall (23rd November), Northampton Roadmender (24th November), Leeds The Wardrobe (29th November), Derby Flowerpot (30th November)

http://www.blancmange.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/BlancmangeMusic

https://twitter.com/_blancmange_

https://www.instagram.com/neilarthur/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
22nd September 2018

VALERIE RENAY Your Own Shadow

20 September 2018 /

When Valerie Renay of NOBLESSE OBLIGE decides to release a solo project, she creates “music for fast moving clouds”.

Conceived in a moment of deep transition, ‘Your Own Shadow’ is an amalgamation of organically developed raw sounds, haunting vocals and tribal inserts, enveloped in delicious synth and simplistic melodies.

NOBLESSE OBLIGE’s last album ‘Affair Of The Heart’ in 2013 featured a stark funereal cover of ‘Hotel California’, while the duo also opened for IAMX and were championed by Mark Reeder.

Whilst walking the path alone can be challenging, Renay rises to the occasion with innate power and the need to discover her real self: “The desire to explore my own limits and share intimate sensations motivated me to write these songs. I started this solo project to exorcise private demons. Writing songs alone is such a beautiful but lonely path, you are faced with yourself, your own fear, your own doubts but also the incredible feeling that everything is possible and options are endless. The choice is yours, you’re the pilot flying that plane. I needed to get those songs out of my system because they inhabited me like unresolved, fragile tales that I wanted to share, to understand better who I am.”

The exhilarating ‘Speed Of Blue’ was penned by Ian Pickering of SNEAKER PIMPS and Renay delivers it with a poise and passion, which bubbles underneath, waiting to be expelled. Her vocal, styled on that of Ian Curtis brings gloom and hope at the same time, while ‘Sailor’ soothes with its bluesy textures à la John Fryer on his BLACK NEEDLE NOISE project.

‘Hollow’ releases deep sadness, in keeping with ‘Darkest Lake’, where deeply hidden vulnerabilities come to the surface. This closing song is beautifully ethereal and delicate, floating lightly with the unlimited weightlessness of filmic qualities.

In contrast, ‘Kick Again’ and ‘Rough & Ready’ border on rebellious harshness, which suits Renay’s love affair with extremities. ‘Melancholia’ is poetically bare and delivered with minimalistic messages in French, where the choice of tongue adds to the romantic feel of the finished product.

A very different proposition from her work with NOBLESSE OBLIGE, Renay’s first solo product is amazingly fluid and harmonious.

“‘Your Own Shadow’, the title of the album refers to the feeling you have when you don’t recognise yourself anymore because you are made to feel small, insignificant, empty and lost” she said, “You know this is not the real you… Somewhere the real you still has fire and power but your very existence feels so meaningless. You forget how to be standing on your own two feet.”

With this opus, Valerie Renay definitely stands on her own two feet with a triumphant message of sensually charged, cinematic deliveries superbly put together and executed. Way to go!

‘Your Own Shadow’ is available direct from https://valerierenay.bandcamp.com/

VALERIE RENAY plays The Slaughtered Lamb, 34-35 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX on Friday 15th November 2019

https://www.facebook.com/valerierenaysolo/

https://twitter.com/FemmeFacade

https://www.instagram.com/val_renay/

https://soundcloud.com/valerie_renay

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
20th September 2018, updated 13th October 2019

GAZELLE TWIN Pastoral

18 September 2018 /

As innocent and idyllic as the new album title from GAZELLE TWIN sounds, those who are well familiar with Elizabeth Bernholz’s previous output, won’t be fooled.

The queen of all things weird and wonderful is back after the highly acclaimed ‘Unflesh’. ‘Pastoral’ should be glorifying her new found life in the depths of Old England, a move amidst other life changing events; instead, it “exhumes England’s rotten past, and shines a torch over its ever-darkening present”.

No matter what century we live in, the evil, greed and consumption have gone full circle, no matter “What species is this? What century? What atmosphere? What government?”, as questioned with choral voices in the opening ‘Folly’, with the intro like DEPECHE MODE’s ‘The Great Outdoors’ played backwards.

If things were indeed ‘Better In My Day’, which is proposed in a house / rave notion with the additional twists from frenzied electronics, then “the world with jobs, no foreigners, no locked doors and kids full of respect” was “much better in my day”.

The tribal sounds of what promised to be lovely and cuddly in ‘Little Lambs’ is nothing of the kind. Almost ritualistic, the mantric rhythm sounds scary, and the “little lambs” are us: the little island dwellers, fed lies and distractions to keep us away from the bigger picture. “Save yourselves” the synthesised voice warns, before ‘Old Thorn’ ushers the “multi-gender voices, in vernaculars old and new” as if.

‘Dieu Et Mon Droit’, sung with a KATE BUSH poise, crown the otherwise sad state of affairs described here. Bernholz’s vocal goes male on ‘Throne’ in monophonic rhythm, spitting out words with disgust: “Scratching, Picking, The wound, Bleeds, Pus, Flows, Sticks, Stinks”. ‘Mongrel’ describes a new breed of humans and the new behaviours which are ridden with self-assurance, opinionated yet easily offended over nothing, but it suits them. The opening questions from ‘Folly’ return, “What species is this? What century?”

The glorious Old England won’t come back as in ‘Glory’, delivered in the style of ZOLA JESUS goes mediaeval. The Wiccan imaginary beaten out of the drum ritual sees new found sounds and experiences Eastern influences in the plethora of styles, each as distant from each other, as they are close.

The meeting in the good Old English ‘Tea Rooms’ won’t bring the illusion of “pastoral picture”; the reality is far uglier than the idyllically drawn “hedgerows and steeples” or “cattle, tearooms”, because there’s also the “roadkill” and the village square sees executions as well as happy country summer fetes. ‘Jerusalem’ mocks the “ideal citizen”, with the sneer from the riddler, while ‘Dance Of Peddlers’ utilises early instrumentation in the form of recorders intertwined with courtly jester music, spitting out the truth at once: “It’s the Middle Ages, But with lesser wages”.

The first single from ‘Pastoral’, ‘Hobby Horse’ is as deranged and as mysterious as any work of GAZELLE TWIN, but this time she spells it out: “Pack on the loose but I can’t let them in here, My fears are growing, My wounds are showing, My time is up I want to get the f*ck out of here NOW”. She mocks ‘Ye Olde’ and ‘The Everyman’ of the English cliché, brandishing a sneer and a hobby horse.

Certainly not the ‘Sunny Stories’ expected by the title, it’s “All your history’s happened now”, mystically performed with a compelling, eerie vocal, whistling in the country winds and reverberating in the darker skies, with no stars present. Darkness, just darkness out there…

Maybe a better life lies ‘Over The Hills’, a happy country song delivered while riding and we are back to the “good old days”, where “King George commands and we obey”, and there are still “Flanders, Portugal and Spain”, even if they’re getting further and further.

Elizabeth Bernholz hasn’t disappointed in the “deranged, absurd reflection of deranged and absurd times”. Her village square isn’t a source of empty joys, her country cottage isn’t the perfect, magical place and her Old English neighbours aren’t the friendly country folk, ready to help in need.

No, there is horror in every idyll, and danger lurking beyond the ‘quaint’ and she’s not fooled. She will sit there in her red 21st century jester outfit on and make you laugh! I’m sorry, did I say laugh!? No, she’ll make you reflect and cry over the state of affairs, but only if you choose to see it.

‘Pastoral’ is released on 21st September 2018 by Anti-Ghost Moon Ray as a red vinyl LP, CD and download available from https://gazelletwin.tstor.es

GAZELLE TWIN 2018 live dates include:

Gent Vooruit (20th September), Station Narva Festival (22nd September), Warsaw New Theatre (3rd October – ‘Kingdom Come’ performance), Manchester Soup Kitchen (5th October), Brighton Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (11th October), London Somerset House Lancaster Rooms (16th November)

http://www.gazelletwin.com/

https://www.facebook.com/gazelletwin

https://twitter.com/gazelletwin

https://www.instagram.com/gazelletwin/

http://www.antighostmoonray.com

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
18th September 2018

ROOSEVELT Young Romance

15 September 2018 /

‘Young Romance’ is the follow-up to ROOSEVELT’s first opus and it promises new levels of modern aesthetic euphoria based on the use of vintage synths and a step away from the dance directions previously enjoyed.

The work of Marius Lauber, this time around he wants it more synthpoppy with lighter, sunnier textures. Perhaps taking it from his brand new home studio in Cologne to the sunny skies of LA, and having it mixed by none other than Chris Coady finishes off the cycle ROOSEVELT embarked upon with his newest project.

Like any evolving artist, Lauber channels his confidence and re-lives past events in order to become clean: “I ended up processing a lot of emotions that I felt during my youth” he says, “faded relationships that haunted me for years, being on the road for what seemed like forever and the constant search of a place to call home.”

Having indeed toured North America for most of last year, the artist “covers the trials and tribulations of falling in love, finding ‘home’, going on tour and losing touch” all of which push him towards the great unknown.

‘Take Me Back’ which opens the album, only shares the title with the eponymous track heralding ERASURE’s glorious ‘I Say, I Say, I Say’. It’s more MORRISSEY meets TEARS FOR FEARS, in a light, enchanting way with its nostalgic elements weaved in effortlessly.

Sun filled nostalgia shines through the perfect chill out single ‘Under The Sun’. Eloquently produced, this track marries the melancholic voice approach with summer disco beats. In the style of the über popular DISCIPLES, this hits the spot beautifully before being transported into the world of ‘Yr Love’. With personal lyrics, simplified vocals and summer melody, we are served another little musical gem, this time polished to perfection, while still being an uncomplicated club anthem.

‘Illusions’ while having been finished last, is certainly not an afterthought. ROOSEVELT is playing with his new toys here, in the form of eBay bought vintage guitar pedals, psychedelic sounds and filter sweeps. He does the same on ‘Lucia’ and ‘Losing Touch’. “Losing Touch is about being on tour and losing perspective” he explains. “I spent an entire day recording guitar feedback through 5 different amps and the whole process was really therapeutic.”

The more subdued ‘Pangea’ shares its rhythmic footprint with the ballad-like ‘Better Days’, full of sentimental hooks and wistful, dreamy catches. Full pop on blues, with cleverly entwined guitar and nostalgic elements, this is like watching clouds roll by while resting on a canopy of leaves, dreaming away.

‘Shadows’ and ‘Last To Know’ continue the feeling of weightlessness, while ‘Forgive’ shows off ROOSEVELT’s international influences. This collaboration with WASHED OUT works wonders. “I saw Ernest followed me on Instagram and I was so happy to find out he was a fan. He has always been a massive influence and this track was written around the vocal stems he sent back within days – a real collaborative effort.”

The closing ‘Getaway’ is synthylicious and inspired, the perfect chill out tune after the San Antonio experience meets disco pop.

Considering that ‘Young Romance’ only took six months to finish, this follow up opus to ROOSEVELT’s debut is truly a hit.

With plenty of full bodied club tracks, produced with a mellow, near melancholic twist and some perfect chilled out Ibiza tunes, this album is a perfect end of summer treat.

‘Young Romance’ is released by Greco-Roman on 28th September 2018 in CD, vinyl LP and digital formats pre-order from https://iamroosevelt.bandcamp.com/album/young-romance

http://www.iamroosevelt.com/

https://www.facebook.com/iamroosevelt/

https://twitter.com/iamroosevelt__

https://www.instagram.com/roosevelt_music/

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
Photo by David J East
15th September 2018

SARAH P. Millennial Girl

10 September 2018 /

‘Millennial Girl’ by SARAH P. is a musical commentary on societies’ obsession with perfection and the perception that others’ lives seem so much more accomplished.

More guitar assisted and faster paced than her more dreamy but afflicted offerings, ‘Millennial Girl’ does capture a spacey vibe despite the use of more live sounding elements. With a hint of sarcasm, the Greek songstess sings “So I strive, I strive, I strive for perfection every time – But see no purpose – And I buy, I buy, I buy hip, cool stuff I see online – To scratch the surface”

Filmed on location near Athens by George Geranios, he of Undo Records fame, Sarah’s hair and make-up on a brand new visual accompaniment was by none other than Sophie Sarigiannidou of MARSHEAUX in the ultimate Hellectro connection. Meanwhile, the colour touching of the video was undertaken by Norman Treffkorn.

SARAH P. said on her Facebook: “This video – an odyssey in itself, was filmed earlier this summer, but was supposed to come out last year ?

The song is obviously sarcastic – I chose to pick on my fellow millennial girls (w/o excluding myself), because I know that they can take a joke ❣

Girls (of all ages) have always been told how to do things: how to do our hair, what to wear, how to lose weight, how to look pretty. Superficial worries have been passed on from generation to generation, only to keep us busy for a lifetime trying to get what we don’t have. I couldn’t be more proud and grateful for all the women worldwide who are challenging this narrative and breaking all these stupid, outdated stereotypes. To all the ladies here and everywhere – YOU ARE PERFECTION, just the way you are! I’m really excited to share with you my upcoming records and projects, inspired by female empowerment in the past, in the present and in the future. The Who Am I era is closing – the Maenads era is about to begin!”

‘Millennial Girl’ is from the digital album ‘Who Am I’ released by EraseRestart Records, available direct from https://sarahpofficial.bandcamp.com/

The CD of ‘Who Am I’ is released by Amour Records, available direct from https://www.amour-records.com/product-page/sarah-p-who-am-i-cover

http://sarahpofficial.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sarahpofficial/

https://twitter.com/sarahpofficial

https://www.instagram.com/sarahpofficial/

https://www.amour-records.com/sarah-p

Text by Chi Ming Lai with thanks to Robert Helbig
Photo by George Geranios
10th September 2017

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