Electro – Page 41 – 7th Level Music

Review: El Jazzy Chavo – Aspects of Dystopia

Combining jazz, hip hop, funk, and “atmospheric melodies,” El Jazzy Chavo‘s Aspects of Dystopia is a cool, mood-altering record that can be experienced in different moods, on different days, and through different listening systems all to various effects.

The overriding theme of the album is the day-to-day struggle of the lower class living in places with people (and buildings) who overlook them. “Futurama” is like the opening track to a film about a renegade graffiti artist in a totalitarian regime and a place where “the deep snow buries any sound.”

The groove of “Slap of Realism” is rooted in electro-bass and and processed beats that sound almost like they’re coming from the back of a bodega down the street. “Below the City” is surprisingly bright, as if you went into the sewers to hide from killer robots and discovered a vibrant colony of other survivors there. “Delusion” would fit well into a horror film with its simple synth stabs and ethereal chords.

“Where the Stars Don’t Shine” is the track that introduced me to El Jazzy Chavo. The wicked beats, sampled horns, and lounge vibraphone sounds hooked me right away. “The voice you hear is not my speaking voice,” a woman says at the beginning of “La Sirena de la Salva,” and then siren-like calls emerge from your speakers alongside smooth guitars and snappy beats. “Threshold of Sensation” has a neat warped sound to it that almost makes you feel drunk.

“Swallowed by Normality” has a neat switch near the end that shakes you out of your relaxation, but not in a harsh way. The sampled brass on “Hemispheres” is a great accompaniment to the vaporwave synths. “Return to Forever” is waiting for a rapper of mad skills to come along and use it in his next track. “Andromeda” has some of the best use of sampled raps on the record.

“Barefoot in the Storm” has a groove as relaxing at the title implies, and “Stealing in the Moonlight” is just as slick. The album ends with, appropriately, “Oblivion.” The track isn’t gloomy, however. It’s more of a blissful peace one finds as you fall into a well-deserved rest. The album ends with the sampled lyrics of, “I look out the attic window and watch the world go by. I feel like an outsider. I’m on a different wavelength than everybody else.”

He is, and Aspects of Dystopia will put you onto El Jazzy Chavo’s wavelength.

Keep your mind open.

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Throwing Snow releases “Traveller” from new album due tomorrow.

With his new album ‘Dragons‘ set for release June 25th via Houndstooth, Throwing Snow is sharing his new single & video “Traveller“, which follows on from previous singles “Brujita“ and “Halos“.

Speaking about the track, Ross Tones, aka Throwing Snow said “The etymology of the word ‘travel’ originates in ‘to toil’ or ‘labour’.In a modern context, movement is easy for some and near impossible for others, so the word still encapsulates this duality. ‘Traveller’ is journey music and was made from recordings loaded on to the SAMPLR app then manipulated and sequenced.”

Listen to & watch “Traveller” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CXg8Qo-MMk

Throwing Snow’s fourth album is the audiovisually-augmented Dragons, a work that occupies the space between science and ancestral wisdom. It links music back to its prehistoric capacity for transmitting knowledge to new technology that can untangle the complexity of the contemporary world. Dragons’ ten tracks of heavy primal rhythmic productions incorporate the physicality of acoustic sources, from ancient ritual instruments to modern drum kit, and each track is accompanied by visuals generated by machine learning.

Throwing Snow, aka Ross Tones developed Dragons’ neural network with artist, designer and technologist Matt Woodham. The structures and changes in Tones’ music trigger corresponding changes in accompanying moving images, which combine life in three scales, from microscopic views of rocks to large scale maps. “Everything that happens musically triggers the algorithm to do something,” Tones explains. “This isn’t controlled or predictable, and the music becomes an instruction for the algorithm to make its own decisions about datasets, images, speed, movement and other manipulations.”

The tracks on Dragons match Tones’s ambitions for the album in weight but not complexity. They are intentionally dazzlingly simple in their means, for maximum effect, with repeating motifs, locked basslines, cosmic patterns and full-frequency mids. Often built from four or fewer elements, Tones allows sound to accumulate into his unique take on ritual music for the 21st century. Throbbing ritual dances contain half-remembered earworms revealing glittering night skies of synthesizer patterns – ‘Halos’ stabs and stutters like a dance atop a longbarrow; ‘Purr’ reverberates in silky vibrational motifs; the heavyweight ‘Brujita’ is nu-metal for a past-future ceremony of uncertain purpose.

Tones says he often uses his music as allegory and container for the concepts and theories he’s immersed in – he studied astrophysics, and is fascinated by crafts, archeoacoutics, history, evolution and psychology. In Dragons, he wanted to explore the purpose of music from the beginning of human history. “We have Palaeolithic minds but find ourselves in an increasingly complex and interconnected world,” Tones explains. “Music and art have always been ritualised as a tool for memory, knowledge and emotion, and humans make sense of existence by using tools. Songs were tools of understanding, passed down from our ancestors. Now, things are complex and interrelated, so we can’t use that ancestral knowledge, and need to invent new tools – that’s where machine learning comes into it.”

As is typical for Tones’ Throwing Snow project, the album contains a bold and eclectic mix of instruments, from a bodhrán and daf to cello, with their uses rooted in their inherent acoustic properties. Tones also essentially built his own sample pack for the percussion patterns, working with drummer Jack Baker (Bonobo, Kelis, Alice Russell, Planet Battagon) on an intensive two-day session.

Tones is a Houndstooth stalwart, and Dragons is his fourth full-length album on the label, along with a string of 12”s and EPs. His first album was Mosaic in 2014, followed by Embers in 2017, and Loma in 2018. Originally from the North Of England, for the last few years he has worked from The Castle, his studio an hour outside Bristol/Bath, where he can both forage his own food and find the headspace to make music and experiment with modern technology. He is currently recording a new album with his trio Snow Ghosts, and a soundtrack for a Netflix documentary.

Dragons is a new form of inter-disciplinary album, which is neither wholly electronic nor acoustic, sonic or visual, and pulls from an equally diverse range of inspirations, from texts such as Steven Mithin’s The Singing Neanderthals and Margo Neale and Lynn Kell’s Songlines to the 1982 animated film Flight of Dragons. “I’m into putting music back into history,” Tones explains. “I want to make you think about what music is, what its purpose has been. I’m asking about the scientific aspect to folklore and ancient knowledge, and looking at why it’s still useful. This album is a doorway – if you choose to listen like that.”

Pre-order Dragons here: https://hth.lnk.to/dragons

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Review: Alberto Melloni – Red Siren Remixes

Alberto Melloni‘s Red Siren EP was already a hot double-shot of house and trance music, and now two remixes of the EP’s title track have been released from Paradise Palm Records.

The first remix, by Berlin’s Local Suicide, bubbles with industrial bass and dark dance club synths. It’s the kind of track that will instantly awaken you from an early morning groggy state (as it did to me) and keeps you bumping and grooving.

The second remix is by Jacuzzi General, and is a great example of his poolside, luxurious, hedonistic style of house and disco. The synth-bass thuds are pretty much made for slow motion videography of glamorous women walking around, lounging in, and making out by a rooftop pool.

It’s good stuff, and Paradise Palms seems to be hitting everything up the middle for at least a double right now.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Aaron at Paradise Palms.]

Anika releases title track from her upcoming album – “Change.”

Anika – the project of Berlin-based musician Annika Henderson who is also a founding member of Exploded View – announces Change, her first new album in over a decade, out July 23rd on Sacred Bones & Invada, and shares the “Change” video directed by Sven Gutjahr who also directed the video for recent single “Finger Pies.” The follow-up to cult favorite Anika (2010), Change is beautifully fraught. The intimacy of its creation and a palpable sense of global anxiety are seemingly baked into the album’s DNA. Spread across nine tracks, the central feeling of the record is one of heightened frustration buoyed by guarded optimism. The songs offer skittering, austere electronic backdrops reminiscent of classic Broadcast records or Hi Scores-era Boards of Canada, playing them against Anika’s remarkable voice—Nico-esque, beautifully plaintive, and—in regards to the record’s subject matter—totally resolute.

Having worked collaboratively in the past with the likes of BEAK> and Exploded View, Change was ultimately the product of necessity. After recording the initial ideas by herself at Berlin’s Klangbild Studios, Anika was joined by Exploded View’s Martin Thulin, who co-produced the album and played some live drums and bass. “This album had been planned for a little while and the circumstances of its inception were quite different to what had been expected,” says Anika. “This colored the album quite significantly. The lyrics were all written there on the spot. It’s a vomit of emotions, anxieties, empowerment, and of thoughts like—How can this go on? How can we go on?”

Recorded at a time when literally everyone in the world was being forced to take stock, rethink, and reimagine their own place in the cosmos of things, Anika provides the wizened perspective of an outsider. It’s a perspective that is not lost on the British ex-pat and former political journalist, and despite the subject matter and the circumstances around its creation, Change itself is ultimately a treatise on optimism. The title track presents the album’s message writ large: “I think we can change, we all have things to learn, about ourselves and about each other.” To end the record on such a sanguine note might be one of Change’s most revolutionary gestures.

“There’s a lot of stuff I want to change,” says Anika. “Some things I sat down and decided last year, I had to change about myself and my life. Sometimes it feels helpless because the things we want to change are so huge and out of our control. Starting with yourself is always a good place. I think we can change.”
Watch “Change” Video

Watch “Finger Pies” Video

Pre-order ChangeChange Tracklist
1. Finger Pies
2. Critical
3. Change
4. Naysayer
5. Sand Witches
6. Never Coming Back
7. Rights
8. Freedom
9. Wait For Something Anika European Tour Dates:
Sept. 10 – Offenbach, DE @ Hafen2
Sept. 12 – Dunkerque, FR @ Les 4 Ecluses
Sept. 23 – Nancy, FR @ L’Autre Canal
Sept. 24 – Rouen, FR @ Le 106 Club

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Oh Baby, like the rest of us, claim “I Need Somebody to Love Tonight.”

London & Manchester-based duo Oh Baby are set to release their new album ‘Hey Genius‘ on July 23rd via Burning Witches Records The pair, made up of distant cousins Rick Hornby & Jen Devereux met via a chance meeting at distant relatives funeral. Today they’re sharing their new single “I Need Somebody To Love Tonight“.

Speaking about the track, the band said “I Need Somebody To Love Tonight is a cover of an obscure track by Patrick Cowley who was a composer and electronic musician/producer in 70’s San Francisco and who’s music formed part of the New York underground post-disco scene of the early 80’s. When we discovered his early instrumentals and demos had been re-released we devoured all that homemade analog charm. Finding out that the original track was part of music commissioned for gay porn films gave the sound even more beautiful late-night sleaze.”

Listen to “I Need Somebody To Love Tonight” here:https://bit.ly/3fHhDS7

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen combine their superpowers for a fine new single.

oday, Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen unveil a true knockout of a song, “Like I Used To,” with a gorgeous accompanying video. The track opens less with a chord than with a crash, an announcement to stop what you’re doing and stand at attention: Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen are singing together. “Like I Used To” takes its place among the great anthems: a powerful and joyful ode to reclaiming one’s own space. Sharon’s troubadour swagger is sure-footed and stadium-sized. Angel’s inquisition is piercing, evocative, impossible to dodge. The combination of their voices is so beautiful and electric, it’s almost destabilizing, and it’s only furthered by John Congleton’s production, who has worked closely with both in the past: Sharon on her most recent album, Remind Me Tomorrow, and Angel throughout her career on Burn Your Fire for No Witness and All Mirrors.

The song’s stunning accompanying video, directed by Kimberly Stuckwisch and shot in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree at various locations, elevates the overall vibe and free spirit of “Like I Used To.” It is a visual representation that truly celebrates the collaborative nature of these two special songwriters and performers.
Watch Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen’s Video for “Like I Used To”
Both Sharon and Angel have long-admired one another from the close-but-far distance of life on tour, a life that unifies them even as they’ve spent years criss-crossing each other from miles, countries, continents apart. Ask them each about the song’s origin story and they inadvertently stitch a mirror together, a story of mutual admiration and, lucky for us, eventual collaboration. “Even though we weren’t super close, I always felt supported by Angel and considered her a peer in this weird world of touring. We highway high-fived many times along the way…I finally got the courage in June of 2020 to reach out to see if she would want to sing together. I got greedy and quickly sent her a track I had been working on,” says Sharon.

“I’ve met with Sharon here and there throughout the years and have always felt too shy to ask her what she’s been up to or working on,” says Angel. “The song reminded me immediately of getting back to where I started, before music was expected of me, or much was expected of me, a time that remains pure and real in my heart.” To call it magic is to cheapen the connection between these two masters, but when you listen it’s hard to call it anything else.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Max Bloom’s “Palindromes” is a delightful love song.

Today Max Bloom (previously of Yuck) has shared a second single from his forthcoming solo record ‘Pedestrian’, which is set for release on June 18 through Bloom’s own new label, Ultimate Blends. He will also be playing a socially-distanced show at London’s Oslo on July 2nd.

“Palindromes“ is a wistful, understated love song. Bloom explains: “This song is about how I got together with my girlfriend Anna, who also plays bass in my live band (and co-wrote two songs on the album). We were best friends for years, then she broke up with her boyfriend and we got together quite suddenly. It was completely unplanned, but when it happened it felt like a lucid dream. I wanted to write something to commemorate it (Anna has also written a few songs about it too), and after the darkness and grief of Perfume, it felt cathartic for me to write this song.”

“Palindromes” video:https://youtu.be/Uv7y47iMoNM

The album ‘Pedestrian’ takes its listener into the outside world. And it was here, wandering the city streets and parks against the surreal backdrop of the last twelve months, that Bloom discovered his inspiration for this latest collection of songs. He found himself observing his surroundings and people’s behaviour in a new light.

Over the months, a regular cast of companions (namely Spoon, Beck, and Yellow Magic Orchestra) accompanied Bloom on his increasingly lengthy runs. These references, alongside core influences like Wilco, George Harrison, and Grandaddy, helped bring a fresh pallet of sonic colours and textures to ‘Pedestrian’.

‘Pedestrian’ is the first release on Bloom’s new label, Ultimate Blends, which will be a home to all of his future projects and productions. Bloom has also designed individual artworks for every song on this album, and animations for its forthcoming singles. He also hosts podcast JEW-ISH, a series of one-to-one interviews with Jews from a range of different cultures and backgrounds, aiming to show the nuance that exists within the Jewish world. Listen here.

‘Pedestrian’ will be released on June 18th via Ultimate Blends.
Max Bloom will play Oslo in London on July 2nd. Ticket info here.

‘Pedestrian’ track list:
1. Pedestrian – Official video
2. Palindromes – Official video
3. All The Same
4. America
5. The Weatherman
6. Imposter Syndrome
7. Under Green Skies
8. How Can I Love You
9. Twenty-Two
10. Cat On Your Lap

Links:
JEW-ISH podcast
https://maxbloom.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/MaxBloomMusic/

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[Thanks to Kate at Stereo Sanctity.]

Review: CHAI – Wink

It’s entirely possible that CHAI has been having more fun than anyone else in rock, Japan, or even the world for the last few years. Each of their albums, Punk, Pink, and now Wink, is pop-punk / electro perfection and all of them are brimming with positivity.

Wink continues the trend and starts a new one for the band – collaborations. Ric Wilson, YMCK, and Mndsgn all appear on the album to join the fun. The first track, “Donuts Mind If I Do” is a song about aging gracefully and eating donuts. What’s not to like (especially with that Earth, Wind & Fire-like groove)? “Maybe Chocolate Chips” (featuring Mr. Wilson, whom they met at Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival) posits the theory that a birthmark on your body might be a tasty treat.

“It’s okay. Everything is okay.”, CHAI sings on “ACTION” – a sharp dance track inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement that lets us know that we can change dour circumstances by, if nothing else, getting up and deciding to do something. The electro-bass slides into near-goth industrial territory for a great effect. Speaking of dancing, just keep at it during “END” – a bouncy, dance-punk cut with the band yelling “Shut up!” at their doubters and haters and throwing in rap verses because they damn well can.

“PING PONG” (with YMCK), with its video game sounds and aerobic workout beats, is one of the best dance tracks of 2021 and is a song about playing ping pong after spending a day at a spa. The world needs more songs like this, not to mention a day at the spa. I beg to differ with “Nobody Knows We Are Fun,” a song in which CHAI claims no one realizes they’re cool and worth inviting to the party, because (as I mentioned earlier) CHAI are having more fun than 90% of the planet.

“It’s Vitamin C” has a bit of a slow-jam groove to it as “It’s good for you, it’s good for me, it’s good for the body,” they sing, and I have a feeling that their lyrics about orange juice are a metaphor for…ahem, something else. “IN PINK” (with Mndsgn) blends electro-pop with P-funk. The lazy beat of “KARAAGE” is hypnotic and, let’s face it, sexy.

“Miracle” has some thick bass to go along with its booty-shaking beats and sunshine lyrics. “Wish Upon a Star” is another R&B-like jam with soft organ tones and subdued beats. The closer, “Salty,” is about fond memories – sometimes rediscovered through food (one of CHAI’s favorite subjects).

Wink is a bit stripped-down compared to CHAI’s first two records, but is no less fun than them. As always, CHAI deliver uplifting music when we need it most.

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[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Remington Super 60 – Nouvelle Nouveau

Imagine being in a relationship with someone for almost two decades, as well as being in band together, and then deciding to end the relationship but continuing on as a band. How would that affect the writing and recording processes, let alone touring?

If you’re Remington Super 60, and if you’re songerwriter / producer Christoffer Schou and singer Elisabeth Thorsen, you realize that the end of a relationship doesn’t have to mean the end of a friendship or an artistic collaboration, and, along with Magnus Abelsen, you make a fine EP like Nouvelle Nouveau.

Perky, poppy “Talk with You” instantly makes you feel warm and nostalgic for quiet European cafes and mellow afternoons with your lover. The EP is full of references to Schou and Thorsen’s break-up, of course, and the first track alone has lyrics like “All I want is to get close to you so I can talk with you.”, but the EP isn’t gloomy. It’s too bright to be a downer.

The Cure-like bass and guitar on “I Won’t Change My Mind” backs up Thorsen singing, “I don’t know what I can do to make this easy for you…I tried to tell you, but you never understand, but it’s too late now.” The song is a sad tale, but one of shared grief. Both she and Schou know they have to move on from what they had and both know that being okay with it is far better than being spiteful or bitter. “All I Want” has a neat acoustic guitar sound that seems to blend country and psychedelic folk.

Electo-lounge keyboards (vintage ones, no doubt, as Schou loves using and collecting them) start “Still Near,” with Thorsen claiming, “I don’t want to see you again. It hurts when you’re around.” and “I just want to disappear even though you’re still near.” “See This Through” has a bit of a bossa nova flair to it with Schou and Abelsen’s synths and beats and Thorsen’s vocals that are somehow sad and upbeat at the same time. I don’t know how she does it.

“Misconception” has Thorsen tells us (and, let’s face it, Schou) that she doesn’t need saving. Schou and Abelsen’s synth work on it is great, mixing synthwave with dance-pop grooves. Believe it or not, “All Alone” was written many years ago, long before Schou and Thorsen’s break-up. Schou sings lead vocals on it, and one can’t help but marvel at its predictive nature. The acoustic guitar and hand percussion on the track mix well together, and it’s a dreamy send-off.

I don’t know if Remington Super 60 will continue to make music together, but Nouvelle Nouveau is a good sign that they can still create lovely, dreamy art and embrace change. The world would be a better place if we could all have that presence of mind.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Christoffer Schou.]

Rewind Review: Bloc Party – Intimacy (2008)

Bloc Party‘s 2008 album, Intimacy, is perfectly named. Every song on the record is about love – new love, lost love, dying love, old love, hopeful love, desperate love, and probably another five or six variations that I’ve forgotten. The album is loaded with Bloc Party’s signature heavy guitars, stadium rock drumming, prog-rock switches, intricate lyric stories, and passionate vocals.

Opening track “Ares” has the band wanting to declare a war and expressing anger and rage in the only way they know how – through warning alarm guitars and car crash drumming (instead of breaking things with their fists). Lead singer / guitarist Kele Okereke wants to punch something, but would rather use those hands that “could work wonders, with their touch listening to dead singers in your room in ’98” for more intimate matters.

“Mercury” brings in electro-beats as Okereke warns “This is not the time to start a new love, this is not the time to sign a lease.” He wants love, though. He’s tired of “sleeping with people I don’t even like,” but “Mercury’s in retrograde” and everything is fucked up beyond belief.

Gordon Moakes‘ bass licks are on fire throughout “Halo” – a powerful rocker that tells a tale of two lovers desperate for a connection (“I ask you for the time, but I am asking for so much more.”). “Biko” is a tragic tale of a lover’s impending death and how there’s nothing Okereke or anyone else can do to stop it. “Was my love strong enough to bring you back from the dead? If I could eat your cancer I would, but I can’t.” The song is a beautiful gut punch.

“Trojan Horse” has Okereke trying to understand his lover’s depression (“You used to take your watch off before we made love.” / “Just take me back to the start, when your earthquake was just cracks.”). Russel Lissack‘s lead guitar sounds like angry hornets during his solo on it. “Signs” is another sad tale, with a ticking, chiming music box as its backdrop, of another lover who has passed from this world (or perhaps the same from “Biko”) and Okereke not quite being able to make sense of it.

Matt Tong‘s percussion and sizzling cymbals mix well with programmed beats on “One Month Off” – a tale of a cheating lover and Okereke claiming “I can be as cruel as you,” but by the end telling her, “If you need time…” Okereke admits his own faults on the choir-backed “Zephyrus” with lyrics like “Baby, I’m ashamed of the things I put you through. Baby, I’m ashamed of the man I was for you.”

“Talons” is story of impending death, but Okereke isn’t afraid of it (“When it comes, it will feel like a kiss.”). “Better Than Heaven” has Okereke settling down a bit and trying to seduce his lover as she becomes more and more tired of him (“You get sadder the smarter you get, and it’s a bore.”). Tong’s drum work on the track is outstanding. Okereke keeps up the sentiment of growing old in love together on “Ion Square,” with lyrics like “Let’s stay in, let the sofa be our car…All the bright lights do is bore me.” The synth-heavy track send the album out on an uplifting note.

Some versions of the album include extra tracks and remixes. The copy I own has four bonus songs and remixes of “Mercury” (by CSS) and “Talons” (by XXXchange). The bonus songs include a sharp post-punk track (“Letter to My Son”) and three electro dance-rock cuts (“Your Visits Are Getting Shorter,” the rave-ready “Flux,” and the slightly gothic “Idea for a Story”), and the remixes are top-notch.

The whole record is top-notch, really.

Keep your mind open.

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