Sharpen your ears: it's the records that are a bit better than the last lot but not quite as good as the others!
15 Factory Floor – S/T
Thing is, all the best tracks on this album have been released before (Fall Back, Two Different Ways) which makes the record something of a disappointment. Despite that, it’s full of sophisticated techno that’s got Industrial/Noise chops as well as analogue dance appeal. In contrast to Nik Void’s work on Transverse with Chris & Cosey, the washes of noise are kept to a minimum and the album operates largely on the interplay between the excellent drum programming and Void’s treated vocals.
Sometimes it can be a bit route-one with its reliance on
arpeggiated synths (guaranteed to make you move) and thunderous New Order
beats, but it’s all so well orchestrated, sharply produced and deadpan in its
delivery that it overcomes a limited dynamic by staring you down and bludgeoning
you to dance with relentless techno sex. I want a befringed robot to fuck me
right in the 80s.
14 Grouper - The Man Who Died in His Boat
Pretty hard to argue with this one; Liz Harris has released a bunch of older material under this title that deals with her witnessing of an empty boat washing ashore – the owner apparently absent and, presumably, lost at sea.
She deftly confounds expectations in her unusual compositions that threaten to be merely pretty in their reverb-drenched greyness, by allowing layered vocals to clash and melodies to hang, unresolved.
It’s heart-breaking and tender, with Harris’s gorgeous high vocal register breaking free of the murkiness of the mix – not enough to enunciate clearly, but enough to intone and generate a melancholic ambiguity.
13 Darkside - Psychic
This was obviously going to be good – Nicolas Jaar’s got a virtually impeccable back catalogue and he marries an evident intelligence with a searching ear and attention to detail, always managing to retain an immediacy in the sensuality of his production and vocals.
Sometimes it’s in danger of meandering aimlessly, but the psychedelic and exploratory attitude opens it out to unusual modes of engagement, while the humanity is retained in Jaar’s characteristic vocals and jarring keyboard melodies.
12 Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin
Yes, yes, yes. As soon as this fucking monster opens, it’s pretty clear that it’s Thee Oh Sees on top form. On occasion, Dwyer’s bloodlust lyrics can sound a bit daft, but there’s cartoonish edge to Thee Oh Sees that suits the balance of seriousness and hedonism in garage.
There’s a lot of breakneck riffing that stays amazingly rigid
despite the spectre of chaos and mayhem that’s always behind Dwyer’s innocent
falsetto (the cover depicts a load of strawberries intermingled with bared
fangs) and there’s a well-judged balance of wide-eyed psychedelia with crisp
melodies (No Spell); dirty, drifting
grunge (Strawberries 1 + 2) and
dexterous foot-stompers to lose your shit to (Maze Fancier).
Play it loud and take your shirt off, please.
11 Demdike Stare - Test Pressings #001, #002, #003, #004
The only disappointment is the loss of all the weirdo-chanting, doomy piano chords and atmospheric hiss that made their earlier material so compelling; perhaps their next release will be a perfectly symbiotic pairing of The Wicker Man and Drexciya, but this is pretty good for now.
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Get in the recovery position and await your top 10...
14 Grouper - The Man Who Died in His Boat
Pretty hard to argue with this one; Liz Harris has released a bunch of older material under this title that deals with her witnessing of an empty boat washing ashore – the owner apparently absent and, presumably, lost at sea.
She deftly confounds expectations in her unusual compositions that threaten to be merely pretty in their reverb-drenched greyness, by allowing layered vocals to clash and melodies to hang, unresolved.
It’s heart-breaking and tender, with Harris’s gorgeous high vocal register breaking free of the murkiness of the mix – not enough to enunciate clearly, but enough to intone and generate a melancholic ambiguity.
13 Darkside - Psychic
This was obviously going to be good – Nicolas Jaar’s got a virtually impeccable back catalogue and he marries an evident intelligence with a searching ear and attention to detail, always managing to retain an immediacy in the sensuality of his production and vocals.
As Darkside, Jaar works with guitarist Dave Harrington to
create music that bears all the hallmarks of Jaar’s own work, but expands into
a space-disco aesthetic that’s propelled by Harrington’s 70s noodlings. It’s
telling that Darkside released a remixed version of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories earlier in the
year, since they’re also operating in the same territory – slickly produced, ambitious
long players that hark back to the era of disco and prog.
Darkside shit all over Daft Punk’s syrupy mess by still
retaining a progressive attitude and merely learning
from past eras, rather than just creating a novelty record with all their
mates. The album is full of space and moments of reverie, allowing the grooves
to bubble up organically and, while Harrington is no Nile Rodgers, the funkiness
is couched in subtly inventive electronics that allow the album to snake around
into surprising corners.Sometimes it’s in danger of meandering aimlessly, but the psychedelic and exploratory attitude opens it out to unusual modes of engagement, while the humanity is retained in Jaar’s characteristic vocals and jarring keyboard melodies.
12 Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin
Yes, yes, yes. As soon as this fucking monster opens, it’s pretty clear that it’s Thee Oh Sees on top form. On occasion, Dwyer’s bloodlust lyrics can sound a bit daft, but there’s cartoonish edge to Thee Oh Sees that suits the balance of seriousness and hedonism in garage.
Play it loud and take your shirt off, please.
11 Demdike Stare - Test Pressings #001, #002, #003, #004
A strange and audacious set of 12” singles from Demdike
Stare; the Test Pressings series sees them adapting the production techniques
that had previously generated their haunted, pagan techno to a slew of
recognisable dance formats.
The mystical strand of occultism that colours their take on dance
music produces a violent, satanic, sexualised broth. They’ve successfully
married the hedonistic and hypnotic nature of house/techno with the psychedelic
abandon of pagan ritual. It’s fucking volatile. If anyone could actually play
it to a dancefloor, they’d all start fucking each other with crucifixes.
In the Test Pressings series they disappointingly dial down
the vampiric bloodlust but compensate with improved dancefloor mechanics. It’s all
excellent, and makes explicit the origins of Demdike’s previous dancefloor
emptiers by re-examining the classic dance templates that have inspired the explosion
of sonically innovative electronic artists with tangential relationships to
their Detroit / Chicago / Berlin origins (see Blackest Ever Black).
It’s all about Eulogy and Dyslogy from #003 for me
however; an engrossing cut of dubby techno from the Basic Channel mould on the
A-side with a ridiculous bit of pots-and-pans breakbeat on the other.The only disappointment is the loss of all the weirdo-chanting, doomy piano chords and atmospheric hiss that made their earlier material so compelling; perhaps their next release will be a perfectly symbiotic pairing of The Wicker Man and Drexciya, but this is pretty good for now.
______________________________
Get in the recovery position and await your top 10...
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