tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34122398018654325412024-03-17T20:01:52.819-07:00Musique Non StopMusique Non Stop - Jazz, Funk, Soul, Broken Beat, Electro, Electronic, Funk / Nu Disco, NU Jazz, House, Techno, Ambient, Lo-Fi, Downtempo... and Many More!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8942125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-48739499443140776262023-12-11T10:09:00.001-08:002023-12-11T10:09:12.732-08:00‘We’re on TikTok? What’s TikTok?’ The forgotten bands going supersonic thanks to gen Z<p>Ageing acts that can’t even get radio time are going viral – and finding themselves playing arenas or even soundtracking Ukrainian resistance. But how do you follow up a hit no one can explain?</p>
<p>Like most musicians, Ryan Guldemond of the Canadian indie band Mother Mother had an extremely quiet 2020. Towards the end of the year, however, the frontman noticed that songs from the band’s 2008 album O My Heart were suddenly spiking on streaming platforms. Day after day, the numbers continued to rise. Something strange was happening. “We were able to track it to TikTok and it was like, ‘Well, what’s TikTok?’” Guldemond recalls. “There was this whole alternate universe of people enjoying Mother Mother songs written long ago.”</p>
<p>In 2008, Guldemond says, Mother Mother couldn’t get a song on the radio or build a significant international following: “There’s a thing called the Canadian curse where you can do well in Canada but you can’t break out.” They grew used to operating at a modest level. Now, thanks to TikTok, they have 8 million monthly listeners on Spotify – almost double that of their more lauded Canadian contemporaries Arcade Fire. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFt0s7crDfo">Hayloft</a>, an oddball tale of rural violence, has surpassed 400m streams — more than any song by, say, REM (bar Losing My Religion). In February, five years after they played to 350 people at London’s 100 Club, Mother Mother will headline the 12,500-capacity Wembley Arena.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/11/viral-hit-tiktok-gen-z-mother-ladytron-keane-miguel">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Dorian Lynskey via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-11664995187134695632023-12-05T07:08:00.001-08:002023-12-05T07:08:59.250-08:00‘Like brushing my teeth’: how Michiru Aoyama writes, records and releases an album every day<p>For two years, the Kyoto musician has risen at five, watched football, then made an eight-track album of super-deep ambient music – while fitting in a two-hour walk. And 200,000 fans are listening</p>
<p>When you’re interviewing a musician, it’s considered a good idea to have digested a decent amount of their art. Having said that, Michiru Aoyama, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/03/ryuichi-sakamoto-obituary">Ryuichi Sakamoto</a> fan and resident of Kyoto, has released a new album every single day since at least 31 December 2021 – so despite a fortnight of almost non-stop listening, I’ve barely scratched the surface.</p>
<p>I say at least because Aoyama has so many releases that if you scroll down on his Spotify page, the system basically groans and gives up. Today’s album is called <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/10VJ9TBIb5SYlYXBbmtNfN">Xyo</a>, yesterday’s was <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1QsiwcvKoydyWnGXH9y9ji">Card</a>, the day before that <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/01cFDtlZuYECpm6DyWBMtA">Moriko</a>; they stretch on and on in their hundreds.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/05/michiru-aoyama-ambient-album-every-day-interview">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Rob Fitzpatrick via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-60244059034698732472023-12-03T23:07:00.001-08:002023-12-03T23:07:33.562-08:00The 20 best songs of 2023<p>Voted on by over 30 Guardian music writers, we celebrate the year’s best tracks from Boygenius to Blur and beyond</p>
<p><br /></p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/04/the-20-best-songs-of-2023">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Aneesa Ahmed, Ben Beaumont-Thomas and Laura Snapes via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-5254387417465149632023-12-03T06:07:00.001-08:002023-12-03T06:07:53.072-08:00‘Euphoric’, ‘opalescent’, ‘perfect pop confection’: Australia’s best new music for December<p>Each month our critics pick 20 new songs for our Spotify playlist. Read about 10 of our favourites here, including Thelma Plum, The Native Cats and Holiday Sidewinder</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/newsletters/2019/oct/18/saved-for-later-sign-up-for-guardian-australias-culture-and-lifestyle-email?CMP=cvau_sfl">Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>For fans of:</strong> 80s Madonna, Prince, Ladyhawke, Liz Phair</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/04/euphoric-opalescent-perfect-pop-confection-australias-best-new-music-for-december">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, Michael Sun, Shaad D'Souza, Andrew Stafford and Isabella Trimboli via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-12989242155327500452023-12-03T02:07:00.001-08:002023-12-03T02:07:32.998-08:00Love Minus Zero: L’Ecstasy review – Tiga and Hudson Mohawke unite on a high<p>(Love Minus Communications)<br />
The Canadian and Scottish producers’ on-off partnership comes to fruition on this aptly titled, category-defying clubland set</p>
<p>Collaborative tracks made by the unlikely duo of electronic producers <a href="https://www.hudsonmohawke.com/">Hudson Mohawke</a> (Glasgow) and <a href="https://ra.co/dj/tiga">Tiga</a> (Montreal) have been trickling out slowly since a banging rave track called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6fA-RM3O98">Love Minus Zero</a> first appeared in 2020 (a Bob Dylan song of the same name is not an obvious reference point). Despite being very different creatures – the younger HudMo is a famed maximalist, while cult figure <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjarjIY5qLs">Tiga</a> is a rave veteran with a sleeker aesthetic – the two clicked. “No apology, no cynicism, no irony, no winking,” is their mission statement of sorts. This 16-track collaboration, pointedly called <em><a href="https://lmz.lnk.to/lecstasy">L’Ecstasy</a></em>, functions a bit like a less in-your-face version of the Skrillex/Fred Again/Four Tet juggernaut sweeping clubland. Here, bleary, ecstatic passages break up the squelchier, ravier and occasionally more punishing highs.</p>
<p>The odd track out is the best: In Order 2, a melancholic wallow in goth chords whose heartbreak theme is unexpectedly disrupted by a glorious saxophone line (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/wolfgang_tillmans/">Wolfgang Tillmans</a> loved it so much he provided the LP’s powdery artwork). BuyBuySell is another crisp workout defying easy classification. But there is precisely nothing wrong with the rubbery techno of Duro, or superb guest features by Channel Tres on Feel the Rush, or Jesse Boykins III on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgWzi3niB9w">Silence of Love</a>, either.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/03/love-minus-zero-lecstasy-review-tiga-and-hudson-mohawke-unite-on-a-high">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Kitty Empire via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-34581763758790298302023-12-02T10:07:00.001-08:002023-12-02T10:07:52.948-08:00Bespoke retro-futuristic synthesisers – in pictures<p>As a boy, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lovehulten/?hl=en">Love Hultén</a> used to tear electronics apart trying to understand their insides. Now, the Swedish audiovisual artist creates bespoke retro-futuristic synthesisers; his clients include Eminem, A$AP Rocky, Danger Mouse and Michael B Jordan. “I love analogue synths: learning how to manipulate sounds using hands-on controls and tactile waypoints is very intuitive and fun,” says Hultén. Unlike the touchscreens the music industry now tends to favour, his handmade synths are encased in wood, resulting in visually striking, high-concept objects. “I try to present alternatives to today’s tech. Commercial products go through strict processes that in my opinion kill the product. I’m a small-scale, one-man studio, unaffected by corporate principles, and I don’t need to compromise.”</p>
<p><em>See more at <a href="http://lovehulten.com/">lovehulten.com</a></em></p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/dec/02/love-hulten-bespoke-retro-futuristic-synthesisers-in-pictures">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Kathryn Bromwich via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-74536717433592861482023-11-24T01:08:00.001-08:002023-11-24T01:08:16.150-08:00Harp: Albion review – former Midlake frontman traipses through twilight<p><strong>(Bella Union)</strong><br />
Tim Smith’s first album with Kathi Zung takes inspiration from William Blake and the Cure to create a landscape of 80s reverb and ghostly vocals</p>
<p>Heavy with quiet, Harp’s debut album invokes Sussex fields to muse on creative loss, loneliness and bittersweet new love. Inspired by William Blake, Herstmonceux Castle and the Cure’s Faith – possibly the Crawley band’s most desolate record – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/15/instant-80s-midlake-tim-smith-harp-william-blake-cure">Tim Smith</a> and Kathi Zung craft a barren landscape out of 80s-indebted reverb, ghostly vocals and sharp, tinny drums. It feels like a permanent twilight.</p>
<p>Albion arrives a decade after Smith left the Texas folk-rock band Midlake, citing creative differences, and fans of his previous work will be gratified by the texture and detail here: synthesised strings, sirens and wheezy flutes lurk behind a misty layer of electric and acoustic guitar. Frustratingly, Smith’s grand, mournful voice is buried in the mix, his gravitas subdued by swathes of sound.</p>
<p>Albion is released via Bella Union on 1 December</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/24/harp-albion-review-former-midlake-frontman-tim-smith-kathi-zung">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Katie Hawthorne via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-83022386728467540142023-11-20T06:07:00.001-08:002023-11-20T06:07:31.054-08:00‘Mick Jagger was surprisingly hard-working’: the all-star life of synth whiz Wally Badarou<p>His reputation for futurist pop got him work with everyone from Grace Jones and Talking Heads to Foreigner – now the French keyboardist is reissuing a soundtrack for a yoga DVD that became a Balearic classic</p>
<p>During the course of the 1980s the pioneering French keyboardist and synth innovator Wally Badarou played on a string of chart-topping singles and albums for artists as varied as Grace Jones, Talking Heads, Robert Palmer, Level 42, Mick Jagger, Herbie Hancock, Jimmy Cliff, Gwen Guthrie, Julio Iglesias and more besides. Despite being in close proximity to such storied musicians, he says that only once during his illustrious career did he know that a song had hit written indelibly all over it: Foreigner’s I Want to Know What Love Is.</p>
<p>“It wanted to be that way,” he says of the archetypal soft rock power ballad. “And the record company wanted it. The rest, whether it be Pop Muzik, Addicted to Love – that wasn’t meant to be a hit – Burning Down the House … I was like, ‘Oh, it’s a hit. How interesting.’”</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/20/mick-jagger-was-surprisingly-hard-working-the-all-star-life-of-synth-whiz-wally-badarou">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Jim Butler via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-28552005786867868622023-11-18T06:08:00.001-08:002023-11-18T06:08:19.200-08:00One to watch: Montañera<p>The London-based Colombian singer-songwriter and composer travels through space, time and genres with her trusty Korg synthesiser</p>
<p>Cities can be lonely places until you find your footing, especially if you’ve travelled from another continent. But María Mónica Gutiérrez has created her own choir to keep her company. The singer-songwriter and composer layers her vocals to ethereal effect, recalling the delicate layering of Imogen Heap but also the music of her motherland, Colombia – such as <em>bullerengue</em>, where groups of women harmonise to promote peace and preserve traditions.</p>
<p>Gutiérrez moved to London from Bogotá for a music masters degree and goes by the name <a href="https://montaneramusica.com/">Montañera</a>. It means “mountaineer” in Spanish, which seems fitting for her sonic explorations: adventurous and yet solitary. Her debut album, <em>A Flor de Piel</em>, began as a response to feeling untethered from a sense of place but sketches out her own musical world. She blends instruments and sounds from Colombia’s Pacific and Caribbean coasts alongside influences from Senegal and ambient electronics.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://lnk.to/aflordepiel">A Flor de Piel</a></em> is out now on Western Vinyl</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/18/one-to-watch-montanera-maria-monica-gutierrez-a-flor-de-piel-colombian-ambient-electronics">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Kate Hutchinson via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-85485370167781571022023-11-17T02:07:00.001-08:002023-11-17T02:07:32.907-08:00Celia Hollander: 2nd Draft review | John Lewis's contemporary album of the month<p><strong>(Leaving Records)</strong><br />
Hollander’s works sound simple but are incredibly detailed and multi-layered, her treated piano solos evoking wind, rain and air</p>
<p>People have been playing the piano for centuries, but few people have ever made it sound like Celia Hollander does. Her latest album genuinely seems to redefine what the instrument can do. The music made by the Los Angeles-based composer – both under her own name and under the pseudonym $3.33 – is all about digital manipulation: <a href="https://celiahollander.bandcamp.com/album/recent-futures-2">2020’s Recent Futures</a> saw her mutilating everyday sounds; the sampladelic disfigurations of 2021’s <a href="https://acloserlisten.com/2021/07/25/celia-hollander-timekeeper/">Timekeeper</a> recalled Brian Eno’s ambient works.</p>
<p>Here she uses the same techniques on an upright grand. While serving as composer-in-residence at an arts centre in Nevada, she recorded herself playing a series of piano improvisations – epic, swirling solos, featuring tumbling arpeggios and harp-like cascades – and then brilliantly mangled them in post-production. Fragments of her improvisations are sped up, slowed down, played backwards, pitch-shifted and put through numerous digital effects.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/17/celia-hollander-2nd-draft-review-turns-a-piano-into-a-new-sound-world">Continue reading...</a><br />
by John Lewis via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-16836994096845652072023-11-14T09:08:00.001-08:002023-11-14T09:08:22.937-08:00‘If it doesn’t smell like funk, something’s wrong with your recipe’: Brazilian baile funk goes global, again<p>Four decades after it originated in the favelas of Rio, a new wave of the electronic music genre is exploding on TikTok, and inspiring the likes of Cardi B and Travis Scott</p>
<p>Harsh, thunderous kicks; offbeat, crispy cymbals; powerful – sometimes incomprehensible – vocals, all preferably blasted out of sturdy speakers. This is the sound of baile funk, an electronic music born 40 years ago the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and one of the most thrilling and downright weird sounds to ever cross into mainstream culture.</p>
<p>While it has long since spread throughout Brazil, it has recently spilled over the country’s borders into memes, fashion weeks, and today’s anglophone pop: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/cardi-b">Cardi B</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/01/travis-scott-utopia-review-rap">Travis Scott</a> have tapped into it this year. And there’s a new wave called <em>bruxaria</em>, which translates as witchcraft, a sombre, four-on-the-floor strain that blossomed in São Paulo’s <em>fluxos</em> – parties in favelas (slums or working-class neighbourhoods) where souped-up car sound systems blast music throughout narrow streets all night long. <em>Bruxaria</em> has also gained momentum beyond Brazil, in turn giving birth to phonk: an internet-based music that exaggerates (and arguably smooths out) its predecessor’s main traits, and has exploded on TikTok and Spotify. Nearly 7m people are subscribed to Spotify’s main phonk playlist, making it one of the most popular in the world.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/14/if-it-doesnt-smell-like-funk-somethings-wrong-with-your-recipe-brazilian-baile-funk-goes-global-again">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Felipe Maia via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-39475629867915502722023-11-06T03:07:00.001-08:002023-11-06T03:07:47.485-08:00God is a DJ: the Jesuit priest who runs avant garde electronica nights<p>Father Antonio Pileggi is a former composer who found his calling running a festival dedicated to ethereal and spiritual expressions of electronic, ambient and experimental music</p>
<p>On a windy evening in late October, Father Antonio Pileggi’s flock are queuing up under the portico of the 15th-century Jesuit church on Milan’s San Fedele Square. The theme of tonight’s congregation at the San Fedele Cultural Centre, however, is not evangelism but electronic noise.</p>
<p>The 57-year-old Jesuit priest, a tall and thin figure with a crucifix around his neck, is presenting an evening of music by experimental electronic composers Maryanne Amacher and Tim Hecker, a Canadian whose ambient instrumentals veer between bliss and terror. The worshippers, silently seating themselves inside the newly renovated auditorium, are university students, electronic music fans and metalheads. Next month, Pileggi will host a concert by Nine Inch Nails’ keyboardist Alessandro Cortini, who will play on a self-designed Strega synthesizer.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/06/god-is-a-dj-the-jesuit-priest-who-runs-avant-garde-electronica-nights">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Marco De Vidi via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-4531362047776542952023-11-03T05:09:00.001-07:002023-11-03T05:09:14.399-07:00Flying Lotus review – electronic music legend flexes his jawdropping skills<p><strong>Here at Outernet, London<br /></strong>Despite being a heavily garlanded and in-demand collaborator, composer, label owner and soon to be sci-fi director, the musician seems happiest simply making people dance<br /></p>
<p>Very few people can say they’ve soundtracked a Netflix series, made music with Kendrick Lamar, Thom Yorke and Herbie Hancock, started a world-famous electronic label, won a Grammy, and are currently directing a Hollywood sci-fi movie. Flying Lotus has done it all, but after having spent time focusing on his cinema, this one-off gig shows the musician is still in the business of making people dance.</p>
<p>Fan-favourite Flying Lotus tracks, including Kendrick collaboration Never Catch Me, 2010’s Zodiac Shit, as well as Black Gold and Pain and Blood from the Flying Lotus-produced animated series Yasuke get huge cheers from the crowd who chant lyrics back in unison. But it’s when Lotus knows he’s in a safe space to experiment that he’s at his happiest.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/03/flying-lotus-review-here-at-outernet-london">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Aneesa Ahmed via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-55581563891112028792023-10-31T06:10:00.001-07:002023-10-31T06:10:05.215-07:00‘My mother’s neurosurgeon loved Berghain’: producer Sofia Kourtesis on love, loss and her debut album<p>The Peruvian artist left her country for Berlin to be comfortable in her sexuality – then family illness took her back. She’s poured the turmoil into one of the year’s best dance albums</p>
<p>Of all the places to take your mother’s world-renowned neurosurgeon, Berlin superclub Berghain might not be top of most people’s lists. But, the Peruvian producer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/29/one-to-watch-sofia-kourtesis-sarita-colonia">Sofia Kourtesis</a> reasoned, she had seen so much of the Berlin doctor’s workplace, “I told him: ‘I want to show you a little of Sofia’s world.’” They went for Peruvian food before hitting the club this May. “He really loved it,” she says. “We bonded in a very beautiful way.”</p>
<p>The unlikely duo met when Kourtesis was seeking medical advice for her mother, who had been diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer and whose health was deteriorating rapidly. She needed life-saving surgery that very few specialists could offer. Kourtesis, who lives in Berlin, read about Peter Vajkoczy and was determined to reach him, despite knowing that obtaining an appointment would be near-impossible. She posted an Instagram story saying: “If anyone can put me in touch with Peter Vajkoczy, I’ll dedicate a song to him. I just need two minutes to talk to him.” Vajkoczy appreciated her cheeky request and agreed to meet.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/31/roducer-sofia-kourtesis-debut-album-peru-berlin-berghain-madres">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Dhruva Balram via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-60319302944193088242023-10-31T03:09:00.001-07:002023-10-31T03:09:13.851-07:00‘We put his face back together again’: the groundbreaking show bringing Ryuichi Sakamoto back to life<p>Shortly before his death this year, the iconic Japanese composer worked on mixed-reality concert, Kagami – featuring new music, 48 cameras and magic glasses for the audience</p>
<p>Todd Eckert is explaining, in circuitous yet joyous fashion, how he first fell in love with the work of the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. It’s a conversation that meanders through Eckert’s teenage visit to Preston, his years as a punk rock kid in Houston, Texas and his time producing the 2007 Joy Division film Control – yet ultimately always returns to Sakamoto’s astonishing songcraft.</p>
<p>“Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence was not the first thing of his that I had heard – it may have been Left Handed Dream – but it was the first thing that I totally understood,” he says, sitting outside a Brooklyn cafe in bright yellow trainers.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/31/todd-eckert-on-his-heartfelt-tribute-to-ryuichi-sakamoto-kagami">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Laura Barton via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-66942164051553500242023-10-29T09:08:00.001-07:002023-10-29T09:08:31.409-07:00Sofia Kourtesis: Madres review – a hymn to dance music’s healing powers<p>(Ninja Tune)<br />
Dedicated to her parents, the Berlin-based Peruvian’s joyous debut album is a masterclass in emotive electronic production</p>
<p>Family is a constant inspiration for Peruvian producer and DJ <a href="https://sofiakourtesis.com/">Sofia Kourtesis</a>. Her breakthrough 2021 single, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY1bZjXKKWA">La Perla</a>, was dedicated to her late father, merging a gorgeously undulating melody with voice recordings, evoking a yearning for home from her new base in Berlin. Following a string of remixes for Caroline Polachek and Jungle, Kourtesis now delivers her debut album<em>.</em> Dedicated not only to her mother but also to the neurosurgeon who performed life-saving cancer surgery on her, <em><a href="https://sofiakourtesis.lnk.to/madres-albumAP?utm_source=Microsite&utm_medium=Artist_Site&utm_campaign=Sofia%20Kourtesis">Madres</a></em>’s 10 tracks are a masterclass in emotive electronic production.</p>
<p>The opening title number sets the record’s joyous tone. With Kourtesis’s soft falsetto reverberating over a modular synth, it soars spaciously, spiralling outwards. This imaginative, cinematic quality is also a feature of the dancefloor-focused tracks such as the thumping <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj1m7s6TRNk">Si Te Portas Bonito</a> and bass-fuelled highlight Funkhaus. The ambient vocal layering in Moving Houses is an unconvincing, sketch-like interlude, but overall <em>Madres</em> is an uplifting experience. It peaks with How Music Makes You Feel Better, in which a techno-infused beat anchors a euphoric, arena-sized synth line, expressing Kourtesis’s belief in music’s capacity to heal the spirit.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/29/sofia-kourtesis-madres-review-a-hymn-to-dance-musics-healing-powers">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Ammar Kalia via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-34239780893061889472023-10-27T09:10:00.001-07:002023-10-27T09:10:34.815-07:00The Guide #110: The outsized influence of PC Music<p>AG Cook’s oddball imprint founded in 2013 has had a seismic impact on the charts. Now, after ten years, it can wind down in victory</p>
<p><strong>• <a href="https://ablink.email.theguardian.com/ss/c/TBl-lE0k4WbTlFRn6v-lQXxTpTslqnvUsR2ofAkC00vqkHXqakTSxrykj9mrdACFM7X02zB_4eaUcPGwGF8aSd8qfug3UI-6On7SZ6NCb1bc8x_o5dndnbkzvJa5hUkQ9nhvD7IJSuyXeKbacJDYEqlFbAZ0vOIKsv3NFHydfPIzaUpYyjP0KfOAhLRYMW2yTAs6TBIgM3bi7aVl__6M8OuHfLZfd7xmigDS_KOnKuU_bc0LD-KQTnN7wlkHVqzvlJ18crhTOgngZzAlM4_3_SCUmWonlgL50tNfCaUIQQk/3hx/2l-ct5r6Q8CNEhlq1hSBIw/h15/kSGp0pNCsCxOwXsdDM-fI8ISkKBb6hYjBXPF16gxdC8">Don’t get the Guide delivered to your inbox? Sign up to get the full article here</a></strong></p>
<p>There are woefully few grand narratives in pop music these days. Over the past 20 years, there’s been nothing even remotely similar to the thrilling scenes that defined late 20th-century Britain: punk, rave, goth, two-tone, Madchester, New Romantic, garage – genres that send hearts hurtling back to a certain time and place. Even grime – whose mid-2010s popularity explosion re-energised British music, fashion and politics – was essentially a reprise of the sound that blazed a trail through 2002. In fact, when surveying the pop landscape today, it seems the closest thing we have to an overarching ‘moment’ is still <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/oct/08/adele-new-boring-ed-sheeran">The New Boring</a>, a term coined by writer Peter Robinson in 2011 to describe the beige, ballad-heavy wave of tediously inoffensive music – your Ed Sheerans, Adeles, Coldplays – that was smothering the zeitgeist at the time. By many metrics, it still is.</p>
<p>If this sorry state of affairs has you primed to grieve the end of pop culture, fear not – because it’s only half the story. A genuinely novel musical subculture actually <em>has</em> been unfurling over the past decade: it may not have revolutionised British nightlife, but it has steadily worked to reinvent pop music in its own image.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/27/110-the-outsized-influence-of-pc-music">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Rachel Aroesti via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-59121518254402628992023-10-27T04:08:00.001-07:002023-10-27T04:08:28.154-07:00The Chemical Brothers review – mesmerising barrage of thunder and lighting<p><strong>OVO Hydro, Glasgow</strong><br />
Sound is turned into spectacle in a theatrical two-hour performance mixing bold visuals and rapturous tunes into meticulously choreographed awe</p>
<p>Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons are indistinct within a looming ring of keyboards, drum machines, laptops and mixers. It isn’t clear, through darkness and dry ice, what precisely they are doing to conjure the mesmeric thunder of a Chemical Brothers live show. But they are busy as druids in a stone circle, working magic among the machines.</p>
<p>Nothing in this two-hour performance suggests the duo – now in their early 50s – are trading on past glories. Yes, the bassline of Block Rockin’ Beats is cheered like a returning hero, but the highlights actually come with less familiar songs, less straightforward moods. Wide Open is equal parts euphoric and elegiac. Goodbye is acid gospel in which bass pounds the chest – EDM as CPR – while a sampled vocal makes the heart ache.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/27/the-chemical-brothers-review-ovo-hydro-glasgow">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Peter Ross via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-54457413263648571182023-10-26T06:08:00.001-07:002023-10-26T06:08:38.829-07:00Overmono review – sparkling shards of rave culture tear up the dancefloor<p><strong>Roundhouse, London<br /></strong>The Russell brothers bring the party to a damp weeknight, using ecstatic production and crowd-pleasing samples to inspire mass dancing even from those seated<br /></p>
<p>Although pounding kick drums, speedy hi-hats, crawling basslines, and looped vocal samples are often associated with DJ sets in late-night club spaces, Overmono are one of the growing number of dance music acts showing that the genre can thrive in a large-scale gig environment and not lose its gritty character. London’s Roundhouse provides an alternative type of big-room experience to what tech-house-loving-bros might be used to, yet the concave roof collects the sound, engulfs listeners, and facilitates a Wednesday evening dance.</p>
<p>The duo of brothers Tom and Ed Russell, AKA Truss and Tessela, get the energy high from the off with their heavy Joy Orbison and Kwengface collaboration Freedom 2, before heading into their more synth-heavy, ecstatic cuts. Big tracks like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq6WtWhKAhc">Gunk</a> and BMW Track are mixed in with crowd-pleasing samples – such as Ruff Sqwad’s Functions on the Low, the Streets’ Turn the Page, and Tessela’s own Hackney Parrot – and smooth transitions are made between them all; soon even those in the seating area stand up and move in a hemmed-in two-step.</p>
<p>Get more Overmono <a href="https://overmono.com/tour/">tour information here</a></p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/26/overmono-review-sparkling-shards-of-rave-culture-tear-up-the-dancefloor">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Aneesa Ahmed via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-54409191297320122252023-10-26T02:08:00.001-07:002023-10-26T02:08:32.716-07:00Women, life, freedom! Iranian electronic musicians reflect on a year of protest<p>A new compilation of work by female producers honours the women fighting for their rights in Iran in the wake of Mahsa Zhina Amini’s death in police custody</p>
<p>In September 2022, Mahsa Zhina Amini died after being arrested by Iran’s “morality police”, for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. Authorities claimed she had a heart attack and brain seizure, but witnesses to her arrest said she was a victim of police brutality. The uprising sparked by her death was the largest Iranian civil rights movement since the revolution in 1979, as thousands took the streets and were often met with violent subjugation from the country’s authorities.</p>
<p>More than a year has now passed, and the ubiquitous chants of <em>“Zan, Zendegi, Azadi”</em> (meaning “woman, life, freedom” in Persian) have seeped from the streets of Iran into the works of female Iranian electronic artists – literally so in the case of Azadi.MP3, whose track Empty Platform is filled with chants of those protests alongside heavily percussive beats.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/26/women-life-freedom-iranian-electronic-musicians-reflect-on-a-year-of-protest">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Christina Hazboun via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-22282091094770963442023-10-22T07:09:00.001-07:002023-10-22T07:09:49.520-07:00Emma Anderson: Pearlies review – intriguing and subtle reinvention<p>(Sonic Cathedral)<br />
The Lush singer’s first solo album is a hypnotic, electro-pop slow-burner</p>
<p>During the 1990s, Lush were prominent figures in first <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/jan/23/shoegaze-beginners-guide">shoegaze</a> and later Britpop, but never quite converted critical acclaim into massive commercial success. After a reunion fizzled out in 2016, co-frontwoman (alongside <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/26/fingers-crossed-how-music-saved-me-from-success-by-miki-berenyi-lush-review-a-shoegaze-stars-painful-past">Miki Berenyi</a>) Emma Anderson carried on working on some of the songs that she had planned to share and develop with her bandmates. The result is her debut solo album.</p>
<p>However, whereas Anderson’s work in Lush – and, indeed, her later <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/jan/13/popandrock.shopping2">Sing-Sing project</a> – was very much guitar-centred, <em><a href="https://linktr.ee/emmaandersonmusic">Pearlies</a></em> is firmly rooted in electronic pop (although Suede’s Richard Oakes does contribute guitar on four tracks). It makes for an intriguing listen: her songwriting style is clearly recognisable, but thanks in part to producer James Chapman, the execution sounds more like Goldfrapp at their most dreamlike. It’s not an immediate listen, but the subtle melodies that abound in the likes of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLvIF64R4hU">Bend the Round</a>, the hypnotic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgbNTYFOGUA">Clusters</a> and the more folk-inflected Willow and Mallow work their magic on repeated plays. It’s a successful enough reinvention for Anderson surely to be wondering why she didn’t make a solo record sooner.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/22/emma-anderson-pearlies-review-intriguing-and-subtle-reinvention-lush">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Phil Mongredien via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-32389439927184230992023-10-22T06:07:00.001-07:002023-10-22T06:07:11.410-07:00Lost Girls: Selvutsletter review – flashes of brilliance from Jenny Hval<p>(Smalltown Supersound)<br />
The Norwegian musician’s second album with guitarist-husband Håvard Volden is a digressive affair illuminated by some glorious moments</p>
<p>Norwegian experimentalist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/mar/11/i-was-a-bit-of-a-brat-about-marriage-jenny-hval-on-domesticity-dangerous-art-and-dogs">Jenny Hval</a> and her husband-guitarist, Håvard Volden, are <a href="https://lostgirls1000.bandcamp.com/album/selvutsletter">Lost Girls</a>, named after Alan Moore’s infamously indecorous 90s porno-graphic novel. Although the sexual exploits of Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy from Oz and <em>Peter Pan</em>’s Wendy are thankfully absent here, Hval’s thoughts, as ever, centre on creativity, femininity and art. Lost Girls’ debut, <em><a href="https://lostgirls1000.bandcamp.com/album/menneskekollektivet">Menneskekollektivet</a></em> (Norwegian for “human collective”), married electronic dance textures to Hval’s musings on the dialogue between creator and consumer. <em>Selvutsletter</em> (“self-destruct”) has more familiar song structures but sustains a bracingly adventurous mood.</p>
<p>Gothic, brooding <a href="https://youtu.be/ScUqhotlSjM">Ruins</a> is superb, a fabulously austere confection, its pendulous bass shivering under icy drums as Hval’s gorgeous voice glides over all. Otherwise, the duo too often arrange a confrontation between singer and song rather than the collusion this seemingly semi-improvised music requires. It’s the more conventional songs that appeal, such as June 1996’s nostalgic, pastoral indie or the cute harmonies and tasty guitar propelling With the Other Hand. While technically accomplished, <em>Selvutsletter</em> doesn’t do enough with its occasional moments of wonder – the glorious chorus of Hvals that arise during Sea White, for one – to justify its many lengthy, meandering sections.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/22/lost-girls-selvutsletter-review-jenny-hval-havard-volden">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Damien Morris via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-86786070719232290212023-10-21T06:07:00.001-07:002023-10-21T06:07:21.245-07:00One to watch: Underscores<p>The US dubstep-pop-punk artist has supported 100 Gecs, and on her second album brings to life a fictional Michigan town…</p>
<p>Underscores has a very gen-Z disregard for genre boundaries: her experimental sound fuses dubstep, left-field electronica, rock and much more. Born in San Francisco in 2000, April Harper Grey was influenced by artists such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/skrillex">Skrillex</a>, and started putting music on SoundCloud aged 13. She released her first single two years later: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/underscores/underscores-mild-season">Mild Season</a>, an accomplished instrumental with broken beats and low drops, pulled together with a steady two-step rhythm.</p>
<p>Next she started layering vocals over her music, producing mesmerising, multifaceted soundscapes. Her 2021 debut album, <em><a href="https://underscores.bandcamp.com/album/fishmonger">Fishmonger</a></em>, expanded into more affecting, personal territory and attracted the attention of famous fans such as Blink-182’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/may/21/all-the-small-things-how-blink-182s-travis-barker-became-the-most-influential-person-in-music">Travis Barker</a>. Later that year, Grey toured with hyperpop duo <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/23/were-not-doing-this-to-be-ironic-are-100-gecs-the-worlds-strangest-band">100 Gecs</a>; her first headline tour followed in 2022.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://underscores.lnk.to/Wsk">Wallsocket</a></em> is out now on Mom+Pop Music. Underscores tours the UK, <a href="https://underscores.plus/away">30 November-4 December</a></p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/21/one-to-watch-underscores-wallsocket">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Aneesa Ahmed via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-40866564905574754482023-10-19T07:08:00.001-07:002023-10-19T07:08:55.031-07:00The Chemical Brothers: ‘We played on top of a toilet block with sequencers on the loo’<p>As they head out on tour and publish a visual memoir, the dance duo answer your questions on their greatest gig, courting Kate Bush and Bob Dylan, and dismaying Björk with slap bass</p>
<p><strong>You’ve collaborated with loads of great artists – who’s the one that got away?</strong> <em>ShermanMLight<br /></em><strong>Tom Rowlands</strong>: “One that got away” implies that it was feasible, but I did have Kate Bush on the phone. I sent a track, she was very sweet and said: “It’s a nice idea, but you’re alright on your own. It’s fine as it is.” But you’ve got to aim high, haven’t you?</p>
<p><strong>Ed Simons</strong>: We are both massive Bob Dylan fans and after one long-running conversation, we thought: “Why not ask Bob Dylan?” It got far enough that we were asked to write to him, so maybe he liked the idea. I’m not sure we ever wrote the letter.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/19/the-chemical-brothers-we-played-on-top-of-a-toilet-block-with-sequencers-on-the-loo">Continue reading...</a><br />
by As told to Dave Simpson via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412239801865432541.post-88505461626566837042023-10-19T06:07:00.001-07:002023-10-19T06:07:33.094-07:00Sampha: Lahai review – how to make an existential crisis sound sublime<p><strong>(Young)<br /></strong>Six years after the Mercury prize-winning Process, Sampha Sisay’s follow-up is jittery with anxiety and indecision, yet poised and luscious</p>
<p>In 2017, Sampha Sisay released his debut album <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/feb/02/sampha-sissay-process-review-young-turks">Process</a>. A troubled, sometimes harrowing, frequently beautiful response to his mother’s death, it was rapturously reviewed and a Top 10 hit. It wound up high in critics’ year-end polls, occasioned nominations at the Brit awards and the Ivor Novellos, and won the Mercury prize. There was the sense that an artist who had previously lurked in the background – albeit the background of some of the biggest albums of recent years, by Beyoncé, Drake, Kanye West and Frank Ocean – was finally coming to the fore.</p>
<p>But Sisay retreated into the background once more, although his mobile still clearly buzzed with A-list requests. He turned up duetting with Alicia Keys on her 2020 album Alicia, earned a Grammy nomination for his brief appearance on Kendrick Lamar’s Mr Morale and the Big Steppers and had an entire track, Sampha’s Plea, devoted to him on Stormzy’s This Is What I Mean. The latter was a rare moment when Sisay took the limelight: the overall impression was of someone who had taken a look at centre-stage success, decided it wasn’t for him and headed back behind the scenes.</p>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/19/sampha-lahai-review-how-to-make-an-existential-crisis-sound-sublime">Continue reading...</a><br />
by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0