There really is nothing left to say that hasn't already been said about the new Four Tet record, There Is Love In You.
Built over a 14 month Residency at Plastic People, it's dancefloor friendly, wonderfully polished, intricate and probably his most accessible work to date. The range of melodies and percussive sounds is simply brilliant; each track intelligently crafted to relfect both the work of his last few years and offer an indication of his future direction.

There is a fascinating interview with Four Tet over on pitchfork about the creation of his latest record, his collaboration with Burial and his musical inspirations. It's a brilliant read by one of the most forward thinking electronic musicians around.

Read it all here

Friday Eargasm

Ok, so it's a working title, and a working idea, but it's something new and everybody loves that.

So, I'm going to start a new feature, every Friday highlighting a track that may not necessarily be the best song in the world but sounds simply fantastic or has used production in a creative way.

With the advances in home production, it's becoming easier and easier to get a good sounding song. However, the markers for "good" have now been realigned as average, with sub-par production only acceptable if you're going down the lo-fi folk route. If you're in a rock band and your mixes are too high end, ripped from a video on your mobile, forget it. So, whether these songs are produced by musicians at home, mastered in a fancy NY studio or somewhere in between, they're sounds that stand out as going beyond that acceptable standard and demonstrating some real craftsmanship as musicians/producers.


To kick us off, we have an album I'm revisiting at the moment, the fabulous Insides by Jon Hopkins. Without giving an entire breakdown, Jon Hopkins is a solo electronic artist and has worked with the likes of Massive Attack, Imogen Heap, Brian Eno and Coldplay with his track Light Through The Veins bookending Viva La Vida rather famously (for them, not him sadly).





However, it is the title track from his most recent album that is this weeks Eargasm.

Insides is a dark brooding track with a strong dubstep feel to it. However, typical of Hopkins' work, the song expands on the basics of dubstep with a gutsy, glitchy and rumbly bass that chops and lurches through the track by adding layers of synths and other assorted sounds on top, creating an electronic composition greater than a wobbly bass line and some slow drums.

Hopkins' drum sounds snap and ring, each compacted bass drum thud matched with an equally harsh and insistent snare. This tight and solid bass end leaves plenty of room in the higher registers for floating melodies on a xylophone and chopped up 2-step vocals. There are plenty of glassy floating synths as well to differentiate sections of the song.

The simple drum beats are complimented with crescendo-ing cymbals and staccato bass synths, clearly identify the peaks and troughs of the track's intensity.

Hopkins' work is expansive whilst retaining a core; all too often expansive electronic music gets lots in the sheer space available. However, by building a solid idea with which to vary around, he ensures that all songs remain focused, despite his exploration of both registers.

It is not glitch-core or glitchy for the entirety, more as a point to build tension when necessary and lets the track flow when it suits it. He is a trained composer and pianist so he is not using the glitchy effect to align himself with other, more popular musicians. Everything has its purpose, every instrument is added and removed as he see's fit, not necessarily when it would be obvious to do so. This allows his grander and more thought-consuming instrumentation to really shine through, something I find sometimes gets lost in the Justice's and Major Lazer's of the world.

It's his attention to detail that is really obvious on this album, both setting him free as a musician and probably holding him back from anything bigger.


Below is a video of Insides live as it's seemingly impossible to find the album version for streaming. For better results, download from iTunes or even for the top trump, buy the CD.

So, as 2010 continues to prove my point about second albums, folk heart-breaker Laura Marling has announced that 2010 will see both the release of her heavily anticipated second album but also her out of the blue third album, via The Line Of Best Fit

Her second release is to be titled I Speak Because I Can with the tracklist below. She will then return to the studio in March with a September release date in mind. How late it will be pushed, who knows. Either way, it's looking to be a highly productive year as Folk continues to look strong going into the new year. It will be interesting to see where the genre and it's various branches stand in a year or so but for the moment, acts such as Mumford and Laura Marling are riding a very successful wave. Long may it continue.

I Speak Because I Can is released March 22nd

Tracklisting:
1) - Devil's Spoke
2) Made by Maid
3) Rambling Man
4) Blackberry Stone
5) Alpha Swallows
6) Goodbye England
7) Hope In The Air
8) What He Wrote
9) Darkness Descends
10) I Speak Because I Can


Thanks again to TLOBF for the scoop

Two Door Cinema Club

As previously mentioned, I'm not the tops at live reviews. I love live music (earplugs and all) but when it comes to describing a live performance by a band, it is all far too subjective, on my mood, my anticipation for the band, the amount of alcohol, how long I've had to wait, the lsit goes on.
It's unfair to describe a band based on so many variables.


Last night, all those variables fell into line and saw a great performance by one of the predicted big hitters of 2010.

First of all, the perfect amount of food and booze was consumed both pre and during. Not horrifically drunk a la Olympia Bloc Party. Consequently, I didn't feel the need to jump aroud to one of the younger and more spiky bands around at the moment. The venue, Madame Jo Jo's, was a new one to me but a brilliant one. A crowded bar area (sold out show) and a very interesting drop to the main standing area with a high stage, meaning good sight lines from wherever. The sound was also exceptional, not even close to overpowering for a confined space.

The main attraction of the night were Irish pop rockers Two Door Cinema Club. Looking as if they'd just come from the library, they manage to put on an energetic and confident performance. Technically, the band have mastered how to perform their complicated and expansive songs live, utilising backing tracks to fill out their sound as opposed to be dominated by them, becoming karaoke versions of themselves.
Their poppy but musically clever songs will surely make them massive radio players in the coming year, fitting nicely alongside Delphic in the latest branch of indie/dance crossover bands.


With a debut album out in March, it is looking to be an extremely promising year for music this year.

Im currently listening to Vampire Weekend's masterful Contra for about the millionth time, give or take.
Though I enjoyed the debut, Contra feels like a much more accomplished version of what they want Vampire Weekend intended all along. It is littered with fantastic rhythms, various intertwining melodies and stunning production, glittering and shimmy on the expansive percussion but dirty and cutting on tracks such as Cousin. Contra is currently number 1 in the album charts and it fully deserves to be, an excellent summery listen in such bleak weather

NSFW

Massive Attack's album is a highly anticipated one for me. Mezzanine took my musical interests in all kinds of new and dark directions and with patchy output since that has sometimes matched and often disappointed, this was a make or break album for me.

After watching an alienating and awkward performance at Brixton back in November, I was more than dubious. Though Massive Attack's trip-hop is always broody, I still find mysef able to connect with them, revel in their darkness as opposed to feeling withdrawn from it. They had many special effects on stage, an amazing light show, displaying quotes about the world that was really quite breathtaking.

However, this video has appeared for new track Paradise Circus and it's thought-provoking and a little disturbing at the same time. Never have I seen someone talk so frankly about pornography and it's a revealing and unsettling video.

It is definately not suitable for work, uni or any of that jazz so watch your back first.

Massive Attack Paradise Circus from sabakan on Vimeo.

I also happen to think, in my opinionated way, that 2009 was an average year for music. Not bad, there were some incredible records, but none that came close to breaking the holy trinity of Untrue, Silent Alarm and TEINACDP.

As is the way with the music industry these days, it's all about the next big thing, a new artist that will shift units before people get bored and move on to the next thing. It feels like just yesterday I stumbled across Ellie Goulding thanks to her cover of Black & Gould and now she's everywhere. Yawn. She'll be manipulated and moulded in the same way Little Boots was, removing all excitement of a young, independant artist.

Things i'm looking forward to musically in 2010 though are the forgotten acts, bands that have maybe waited just that bit too long between albums or return albums that can really shape this year sonically.

If you released anything pre2008, your time is up my friends.



So, in 2010 (hopefully) look out for albums by

Union of Knives
My Vitriol (there's taking your time and there's taking the piss)
Burial (unlikely)
Explosions in the Sky (even mroe unlikely)
Foals (EXCITED)
Justice
The Whip
Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip (based on Get Better, giong to be immense)

Four Tet (Based on the material with Burial and recent single Love Cry, this album is going to be all kinds of messy goodness)


and many many more.

So 2010 should be a big year for albums. Whether they'll all live up to their predecessors is of course, debatable but fun to hope none the less.

go here to hear the new le sac vs pip track
it's amazing

As you'll have noticed, I completely failed to finish my end of decade lists. Suprised? Me either.
There are a number of factors, the biggest being my indecision.

When looking at most influential dance album, was it always going to be Daft Punk - Discovery? It should've been, but I was already into "dance" music and my real appreciation of electronic music came much later than this album, even though I had owned it for years.

Most influential guitar album? Silent Alarm surely? Well probably not. I have always had Garbage as a guilty pleasure and V2.0 is still a classic album that stands head and shoulders above a lot of others. However, its more of a crossover and probably more influential on my guitar listening than Silent Alarm, given that I was already lsitening to that kind of stuff.


There were conflicts like this all over the place and when it came to deciding, actually picking an album that is better than any other of the last decade, I couldn't I cant choose Silent Alarm over The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place over Attack Decay Sustain Release over Untrue.

Most importantly perhaps, I like it like that. I like that the albums I cant choose between are all entirely different, in their production values, in the way they choose to communicate with the listener, in the way they are performed live and in Untrue's case, not performed at all.

I have nothing against one album being better than another, or even one being better than everything else. However, I worry that one album, that is truly superior, may one day not be. These albums, for me, are genre-defining albums and were hugely influential in what they represented. They should all be top of the list