MUSIC | Records
EXPERIMENTAL, DANCE LEE GAMBLE Dutch Tvashar Plumes (Pan) ●●●●● ELECTRONICA MEMORY TAPES Grace/Confusion (Carpark) ●●●●●
REMIX ALBUM MOGWAI A Wrenched Virile Lore (Rock Action) ●●●●● FUTURE R&B S-TYPE Billboard (LuckyMe) ●●●●●
The full-length follow-up to Lee Gamble’s recent ‘Diversions 1994- 96’ EP on the fantastic Berlin-based PAN label picks up similar dismantled pieces from his last release – an EP which was made up of old and sourced samples from his 90s jungle mixtapes and pirate radio sessions as a teenager, reimagined onto a largely beatless, digital canvas.
This concoction of abstract and realised ‘computer’ music with that of revivalist jungle and rave sensibilities marks Dutch Tvashar Plumes as a landmark release for the jaded clubber and avant-weirdo alike. The buried techno stomp on tracks like ‘Plos 97s’ and ‘Coma Skank’ has ghostly qualities akin to some sort of dancefloor séance, being channelled through countless digital filters. This year, both Gamble and PAN are reconnecting dots to some seriously exciting places. (Nick Herd)
He’s one dude making woozy, wobbly electronic music on his Mac, but that’s about where the similarities end between Dayve Hawk and oft filed-next-to peers like Com Truise and Carpark label mate Toro Y Moi. His third album as Memory Tapes sees the rural New Jerseyian discard ‘any ideas about genre, format or even song structure’. The resulting set floats freely between the lines of dream pop and space rock, in a pretty if mildly befuddling state aptly captured in its title.
Comprising six tracks lasting approximately four to eight minutes apiece, it’s a meandering listen characterised more by great moments – the peeling soft-synth stabs in ‘Neighbourhood Watch’, or the darting guitar solo that surfs the crest of ‘Thru The Field’ – rather than necessarily great songs. (Malcolm Jack)
Fourteen years since Kicking A Dead Pig – Mogwai’s formidable remix corpus, culled from their landmark debut, Young Team – comes this equally impressive anthology which utilises last year’s ace LP, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will as its toolbox. A thrilling and challenging
companion piece to Hardcore, this set is as ingenious as it is eclectic. Miscreant highlights includes RM Hubbert’s hushed, nylon rewiring of ‘Mexican Grand Prix’, Tim Hecker’s vociferous and hypnotic revision of ‘Rano Pano’ and mighty Umberto’s transcendental ‘Too Raging To Cheers’. If such reinventions allow acts like Zombi and Klad Hest to transpose their aesthetic onto Hardcore, so too do they underscore the vast possibilities in Mogwai’s music and remind us there is no one like them. (Nicola Meighan)
Another product of the extended family tree of hip hop-obsessed Scots music producers, which bred Hudson Mohawke amongst others, S-Type (the solo project of 25-year- old Bobby Perman) is a natural fit for LuckyMe. This, his label debut EP for them, is a dancefloor-friendly and painfully promising set of six cleanly-produced tracks laced with effervescent hooks and a bit of sharp-edged humour. Tracks like the title song and ‘Flyp
City’ are pieces of futurist R&B which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Kanye record had tens of thousands of extra dollars been spent on them, while ‘Whole Lotta’ bears a booty- obsessed hint of the Wu-Tang. Kudos also for cribbing Joe Esposito’s Karate Kid-soundtracking ‘You’re the Best’ for his radical rework ‘You Da Best’. (David Pollock)
EXPERIMENTAL SCOTT WALKER Bish Bosch (4AD) ●●●●●
From 60s teen idol to purveyor of uncompromising nightmares, no other artist has had as singular a career trajectory as Scott Walker. His first album in six years is extraordinary: vast in scope but solipsistic, a universe all its own. At its core is the 21-minute ‘SDSS14+13B (Zercon – A Flagpole Sitter)’, a grotesque patchwork of hellish orchestration, ineffable musique concrète, shockingly brutal guitar noise and oppressive emptiness. And above it all is Walker’s timeless voice, intoning lyrics that are expressionistic, surreal, horrifying, hilarious, obscene, tender. Where each of his previous three
albums signified vast aesthetic leaps, Bish Bosch is more a stark refinement of The Drift’s harrowing sonic template – the sound of Walker sharpening his focus to a killing point. (Matt Evans)
80 THE LIST 15 Nov–13 Dec 2012
ELECTRONIC/INDIE THE TWILIGHT SAD No One Can Ever Know: The Remixes (Fat Cat) ●●●●●
Remix albums, by design, are a mixed bag. However, having been reimagined by capable friends in the past – Mogwai and Errors among others – The Twilight Sad have already demonstrated that their music can be manipulated, reinterpreted, even blatantly chopped up, and still possess much of the brilliantly dark and unsettling personality that has long-defined their strongest material.
Their third album, No One Can Ever Know, is more or less catered for such consensual butchery, with electronics becoming a much more prominent feature. Thanks to inspired mixes by JD Twitch, Com Truise and Liars, it's thankfully far more than a stop-gap novelty. (Ryan Drever) ■ See the Christmas Wish List for an interview with The Twilight Sad’s James Graham.
HORROR-SYNTH SOUNDTRACK UMBERTO Night Has a Thousand Screams (Rock Action) ●●●●● HIP HOP/R&B THE WEEKND Trilogy (Island) ●●●●●
Matt Hill’s suffocating horror synth score was first premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival last year. The List was there and set as the backdrop to 80s hacksploitation flick, Pieces, it brought a palpable sense of menace and claustrophobia to an otherwise routine, gore-filled bit of slasher ephemera. Shorn of the accompanying
images, this soundtrack still manages to conjure up a ponderous sense of dread, with portentous, glistening synth figures and eerie washes of sound. On his previous two long players for Not Not Fun in his Umberto guise, Hill was only tethered to a notional film created in his own head, and perhaps that allowed him certain freedoms that he did not have here. That said, this album further confirms his stature as a brilliant synth cineaste, in the Carpenter/ Howarth mould. (Mark Keane)
Major-label signings are usually hyped to bits purely on potential. Soulfully-voiced Toronto singer/ producer Abel Tesfaye emerges from the underground, brandishing substantial proof of his idiosyncratic, convention-defying talent. Trilogy collects three outstanding
self-released mixtapes. There’s moody atmospherics where you’d anticipate big donks and air horns, and sorry small-hours sex and substance abuse in place of caricature pimps and hoes. ‘Bring the drugs baby/I can bring my pain,’ sings Tesfaye over a creeping fuzz bass on ‘Wicked Game’.
Like Frank Ocean, he’s one of a new vanguard of US hip hop/R&B artists not afraid to trade in thoughtfulness and feelings – a big breath of fresh air, which the overground is only just beginning to inhale. (Malcolm Jack)