*REVIEW* KINGS OF LEON-WALLS

6/10

8 Years ago,  I reviewed Only By The Night, the third studio album by KOL. At the time I was admittedly excited by the prospect of a new album, as the release preceding it "Because of the Times" when on to become one of my most played albums of that time.

For me the album struck the optimal balance of southern tinged mid tempo belters and huge arena rock anthems. It felt like around the corner, there might be a major stylistic shift in the group, only by the night turned out to be underwhelming. 

The album started out very promising, with the use of synths on the first two tracks I thought would be a good feature, and I thought they might be transitioning into something fresh and different. 

The third song, which was the gigantic hit "Sex on Fire" dropped straight after these two tracks, and after that the whole album lost it's way. We had "Use Somebody" "Revelry" amongst others. It was rock by numbers, banal and overused cliches thrown around in the lyrics and bland instrumentation. 

Although KOL songs have never been renowned for their lyricism, Only By The Night's lyrics had gotten worse. The irony of this was, with each release they got better and better as a band musically, but the quality of the lyrics just kept on declining. 

I noted in that review that I believed they would continue to deliver consistent and satisfying songs, as they had on the three albums previous to that. I really believed that at the time. But how wrong I was.

So now in 2016, KOL deliver WALLS. For the best part of a decade, after their breakthrough success, everything they touched wreaked of mediocrity, from their nondescript "Come Around Sundown" which was completely devoid of memorable songs, to 2013's "Mechanical Bull", which pretty much went further down the abyss. 

It really is no wonder that critics and fans alike talk about complacency when they talk about KOL. This is a band that were (maybe unfairly) hailed as the southern U2 8 years ago. They had mainstream success, and then seemed to not really embrace it, but become passengers within that realm. Who knows whether they have ever become comfortable with it, articles and interviews will tell you they aren't, but they aren't showing any signs through their music that they want to resist against it. 

The opener "Waste A Moment", starts with minimal fuss, builds to a mid tempo crescendo over a couple of minutes, really an ok way to start the album off, considering nothing really goes beyond the tempo of this one, it's probably the most upbeat song on here. 

There's no absence of awful lyrics on this one too. Here's the OPENING two lines of the album:

All the way from Waco to WE-HO with a rabbit on her chain
Drove a little slick car to tend bar with the static on her brain

And straight away, about 15 seconds in I am scratching my head. There's a lot more though. 

The second track "Reverend" is the most endearing track on Walls, the story of a country singer who was tragically shot in 1989. When KOL go into story song mode, I have to say it's refreshing to hear. Their usual fare of awkward cliches about relationships always get on my nerves, and this makes for an interesting take, not only of their sound, but of Americana itself.

"Around the World" has a great guitar hook, but never has enough vocal capacity from Caleb to hold it together. The chorus is also unmemorable. 

"Over" is a song about heartbreak, in the most generic sense, I wouldn't mind so much if I could hear some conviction in the singing. But more often than not, Caleb seems to bring about emotion, like it's nothing he's experienced since 2002. It's just over the top sentimentality than diminishes the song quality. It happens on a few tracks on WALLS. 

When we get to "Muchacho", KOL have pretty much dealt all their cards out, nothing really gets worse or improves from here on in, but we do have our first WHAT THE FUCK moment on here. This track actually incorporates these 1970 MOR calypso beats over some slide guitar that sounds like something off an early Ry Cooder album, then when the beat drops in, it's in this waltz step timing, which is just bizarre. 

"Conversation Piece", gets back to the sanitary boring vibe of the album, with another lacklustre vocal performance and banal instrumentation.

By the time we get to WALLS, the title track and closer of the album, there's isn't really much left to say at this point. 

It's a competent album by an extremely successful rock band. It's no gamechanger, surprises are kept to a minimum, there's no artistic growth, musically or lyrically. 

I hope this is just an era of stagnation for KOL. Because honestly they are capable of so much more. Sure they were never the greatest the band in the world. But when you can consider this is the same band that made songs like "Molly's Chambers" and "Charmer", at least back then they gave it some gusto, now it seems WALLS is a conscious effort just to barely exist. They can be seen on the periphery, but they are no longer at the forefront of every one's mind.

Callan Cummings

*REVIEW* TYCHO-EPOCH

 7.5/10

If I'm to be completely honest, anything dubbed as IDM, chillwave, new age, ambient, deep house etc, has to be listened to, to fully appreciate or understand what that actually means to the music. 

TYCHO, the project of photographer and musician Scott Hansen, has been active for the best part of 10 years. His releases have all kept within the frameworks of these so-called "sub genres". Like someone touting that which is called "electronic music" it's more of an umbrella term. It could mean all of the above, or none at all.

The latest "EPOCH" doesn't tend to break new ground too much, but establishes itself as a very solid album with sound arrangements and confidant instrumentation.

The thing I've always like about TYCHO, is the organic instrumentation woven into analogue synths and programmed beats. Again it's been done before, but it really does it well and is engaging enough to not feel like a retread.

The opener "Glider", has a Tangerine Dream vibe to it, with pulsing bass lines propelled by a tight motorik beat. Really nice opener. 

It sets the tone for the album. Throughout we have the pseudo :"fender rhoades" keys sounds which have been a part of most of TYCHO's recordings.

Another late album highlight "Local" mixes a nice downtempo beat with giddy high pitched analogue  synth leads which meld very nicely with the guitar on this one. 

The guitars on EPOCH, (and all the other TYCHO recordings for that matter) really remind me of something you would hear on a FOALS album, that reverb heavy glassy sound that permeates through their music. I have always enjoyed the guitars on their albums. 

We never really hit anything quicker than mid tempo on this one, but that has also been a prominent element in TYCHO's discography.

The structure of this album is also interesting. The first half is front loaded with lengthier tracks, while the second half has the shorter cuts on the track listing, although this doesn't really make the shorter tracks flash by. I think the music and it's very nature makes you feel like you are in suspended animation, so song durations never really count for much, just something I find interesting to note.

Arpeggiated synths, four to the floor beats, silky guitar lines are all apart of the standard fare here. 

Make no mistake, this release pales in comparison to some earlier efforts, most notably 2011's "Dive" which somehow (although I hope not) will never be surpassed. 

If you are wanting something more adventurous of this elk, most risk for reward, you will probably have to look elsewhere. This one goes with the flow, you may want to try Oneohtrix Point Never or Nicolas Jaar for more game-changing types of intent. 

"EPOCH" doesn't really hit a crescendo, it's like a calm lake. You're never really floating downstream, or upstream for that matter. You're on the even flow. 

A competent release that is engaging without being too spectacular. Still a lot to like here.

Callan Cummings.

IN RETROSPECT SLINT-TWEEZ

The calm before the storm, it's always calm before the storm, in quite a lot of Slint songs, you can feel the sense of impending occasion. It's basically the foundation of Spiderland, their critically acclaimed masterpiece from 1991.

So much has been written about Spiderland, that it seems redundant to bother at all in 2016.

The significance of that album cannot be disputed.. But their debut album Tweez often never gets a look in.. Why is that?

Is it because it's an inferior album to Spiderland? Most people believe this to be the case. But some people believe it's because it lives in the shadow of Spiderland. After all everything is subjective, and ones opinion about it doesn't make it definitive. 

Tweez was produced by the infamous Steve Albini. His production style is all over this, and is in stark contrast to the understated dynamism of Spiderland. It's sound is acerbic, loud and glorious. 

It seems a misfortune that I have heard this album after Spiderland. But I can feel that it is something good, something transcendent mystical even. The guitars on this thing are loud in your face, and jump out of the mix, much like it's respective rhythm section. Sounds are often clashing with one another, it's brutal and ugly, but beautiful at the same time. 

Years later Albini was commissioned to produce Nirvana's swan song  IN UTERO, you can see a lot of the foundations of that work on Tweez.

From the opening track "Ron", you can feel the tension and volatility in the air, in the guitars. Everything feels rushed like it needs to be captured on tape before the spool catches alight. 

The whole theme of Tweez, is to give the listener no time to respond. It's like a disjointed post hardcore band from another dimension. But maybe with No-Wave aspirations. Its burns through tracks. A quick adrenaline rush.

Thats the reason why the albums work so well. The ying and yang. Spiderland was more patient and calculating, it would lure you into a false sense of security, and then BANG you're bombarded with noise and another time change. The shortest song of that thing is just over five minutes in length. We have 3 or 4 around the 2 minute mark on Tweez.

For some reason, the bass is prominent for me. It's not to say it wasn't on Spiderland, but it really stuck out, and may of been a by product of Albini's production, he is know for pronouncing bottom end in his work. Ethan Buckler only appeared on this, he didn't record on Spiderland. I felt more with the rhythm that I had with the other album.

There aren't any narrative style lyrics on this either. If there can be any significance drawn out of the fact that all the song titles were named after the band relatives, it can be seen they probably were stuck for song titles and that made it easier. It doesn't seem to signify anything about the songs themselves. It's a slapdash approach to recording and putting together an album, but it seems to work in a strange way. It's like this was there litmus test, and Spiderland was there apollo mission. 

Since their hiatus in the mid nineties, they have occasionally reunited for shows, they are also remastering Spiderland. They often play Spiderland in it's entirety, but songs from Tweez are played too.

I want to spread the word about the debut, I think it's a raw and unique experience, and it would be a shame for it to be obscured by the herculean epic that is Spiderland. Please listen to Tweez.. NOW!!

Callan Cummings

*REVIEW* MACHINEDRUM- HUMAN ENERGY

6/10

There are many instances in contemporary music, when something completely spontaneous becomes an industry standard, for better or for worse.

New Order basically creating a dance floor anthem off the back of a demo recording with drum machines.. A wrongly configured auto tune track turns into a recording effect, a legendary guitarist plays a bar out of time (Black Dog). The next thing you know, guitarist are playing half a bar behind the drummer for effect.

These things are the spur of the moment, but musicians adopt these because they like them so much and want to see how they sound on their own records. Producers and engineers will ask for, "more autotune", give me that "gated drum sound". 

The problem with some of this is, there is a fine line between homage and walking cliche.

No more is this conundrum present than in electronic music.

We have the new Machinedrum release HUMAN ENERGY. Travis Stewart has been operating under this pseudonym for best part of 17 years now. While a lot of his recordings I have enjoyed thus far, this release has me feeling like it could of been more.

There's the opening intro track "Lapis", which builds and builds into this epic crescendo of synths. Like most of the other tracks, there are elements of songs I like, but I can never truly give myself over, truly engage in them.

"Morphogene" truly kicks off the album. With the looped vibraphones in the beginning it sounds ethereal, and we have male vocals which are buried underneath squelchy synths and beats.  An underwhelming track.

The slow fade in of "Angel Speak" again sounded really cool, and then when the beat cuts in and the mid level saw synths start vamping, I'm virtually lost again. More male vocals murkier in the mix and unintelligible. Being coherent in electronic music isn't a necessity, but all throughout this album I was trying to find something to sink my teeth into, and the vocal cuts simply give anything.

"Do It 4 U" is the best track on here, the intro with the woozy fast attack synth lead is amazing, and the beat is really good. I feel like it is probably the most palatable thing on the album. The gated synth part in the chorus are reminiscent of early house. 

"Celestial Levels" carries through artificial string sounds which are very blissful, with a trap beat dropping through. Again nice enough to listen to, but nothing too spectacular. 

"Ocean of thought" and "Etheric Body Temple" continue on with the ethereal themes on spirituality.  When the tracks are at their most mellow, is when they are the best.

The track I probably disliked the most was the closer "Colour Communicator". The high pitched voices looped at the start were grating, and as the track proceeded it got more and more cluttered with sound. Luckily it is a short track on this.

Travis Stewart uses a lot of overused cliches on this. Some of the sounds are extremely tired and worn out. But it's not to say that it's entirely unlistenable, anyone who is a fan of his other work (Vapour City, Bidnezz, side project Sepalcure) will enjoy this. I couldn't seem to stitch together all of the elements of the tracks with their accompanied songs. It felt like disjointed gratification. 

But who am I to say? This release will please many IDM fans out there.

Danny Brown- Atrocity Exhibition

10/10

Imagine yourself in San Francisco during the summer of love. You've been dropping acid for 4 days straight, and you find yourself at some dive bar, listening to a house band playing long strung out psych rock instrumentals, that have been released by the band on a small boutique label. A label which would soon become defunct and would fade into obscurity as does the band. The band used off kilter time signatures and spiralling guitar leads creating haze and dissonance.

Now imagine yourself in 2016, listening to Danny Brown's latest album Atrocity Exhibition.

All though the pictures I tried to paint for you seem worlds apart, one being a hippie in 1967 in San Fran, and one being you listening to a hip-hop album from a moderately successful and acclaimed rapper in 2016, remnants of this kind of music permeate Brown's latest effort.

More than ever, I can hear these psych rock samples woven in to these tracks. A few critics have already touched on this, and most have agreed that although it sounds like the tracks that are being sampled are jarring, and hard to follow along with the verses, it seems to work really well.

Having a big fondness of Brown's last LP "Old" goes a long way when dipping into this new project.

Danny Brown's flow has also been idiosyncratic and slightly wacky, and that doesn't change on Atrocity Exhibition. In fact it gets wackier, and seems to build into a crescendo of weirdness as the album progresses. 

Brown's signature flow is on display from beginning to end. 

From the opening track "Downward Spiral" we see a despondant and emotionally drained Brown,  he spits lines out about passion-less sex, smoking blunts and just being reclusive in general.  This track sets the tone for the album. Brown wants you to understand that what you are about to embark on may not pleasant.

"Tell Me What I Don't Know" just re-enforces this, however the style of flow on this harks back more to the mixtape era of Danny Brown, which will be welcomed by many longtime fans. The beat drops in with this amazing acid tribal vamp which transforms the track again. The use of sampling is a real feature of this LP, more than ever before on a Danny Brown.

"Rolling Stone" fetishises it's own hopelessness. It's message of leave me be, I want to self destruct in private. But at the same time it is a cry for help, this runs through Atrocity Exhibition. 

"Really Doe" sees an ensemble posse cut featuring Kendrick Lamar Ab-Soul and Earl Sweatshirt. Black Milk is producing and really brings it to this track. The verses are awesome and the track never gets too cluttered. Earl's verses are on point and really give this track something.

"Lost" continues delving into excess, we are in the midst of a lost period of the protagonist's life. The utter carelessness with which this person lives is obviously about to come unstuck. 

By now we have a feeling of being on an extended bender of some sort, total abandon ensues, money spent, bottles smashed, lines slammed, adult consummation and destruction. 

Cocaine is a big theme through Atrocity Exhibition. It is referenced in nearly track on this. We can see this as a vice, perhaps a crutch. There are moments when Brown acknowledges the habit of the character in these songs, only to then say that it has become who they are. There is emotional distance but at times extremely confrontational.

We never really have any kind of resolution, maybe there isn't supposed to be, maybe there isn't a message in the tracks. But then I think, well.... I can look from the outside looking in, maybe we need to identify when things are wrong, or find a way to identify it. 

"Get Hi" outlines how apathy can be endearing when coupled with chemical assistance, jazzmen namedropping is awesome on this, and the verses are really on point. Again a total admittance of the beauty of marijuana, and it's ability to dull all the bad things happening to you.

The closer "Hell For It" feels a like a summation of what proceeded it. Although it feels like a prologue to a story, a very loose thread kept throughout Atrocity Exhibition.  Brown raps about his origins, how he built his career up and the struggle of getting there. 

The final moment of clarity in a way. That the downward spiral is now trending up. 

"So my task
Is inspire your future with my past
I lived through that shit
So you don’t have to go through it"

Thanks for showing us the way, Danny.

Callan Cummings

*REVIEW* JENNY HVAL-BLOOD BITCH

8/10

... Does explicitly self aware commentary on the body translate well to music?

You can ask many artists this, and the answer is yes. Many believe they can use their instrument, whether it be a tactile apparatus (guitar, sax etc) or human voice to evoke a sense of oneness they believe can translate to their music. 

There's a small camp of musicians in the last 7 or 8 years, who have been able to achieve this. If you look at Pharmakon's recent releases, you will see that the music is dominated by body themes, the throaty noises quite often used to unsettle listeners, the samples of heart beats, the subject matter in the songs (the whole 2014 release Bestial Burden is centred around human organs, inspired by her surgery which abruptly halted a european tour schedule). 

It is no coincidence that Jenny Hval's latest album continues on with the feel of this micro genre. Hval's previous record, last years "Apocalypse, Girl" looked at capitalism, and the modern female's efforts to make sense of the world around them. There's lyrics alluding personal gratification (via masturbating), big companies stranglehold on labour forces and the overwhelming sense of smallness in a big city filled with skyscrapers.

Hval often tries to submerse us in an aural art installation, and successfully paints images in our minds with her choice of accompaniment and often half sung-spoken lyrics. Like all effective art projects or concept pieces, there is just enough content, to have you thinking about the underlying concepts behind the project, but not too much as to be condescending and over the top. She gives you a small framework to work within, and evokes enough to be engaging throughout.

Blood Bitch, has a clear concept, at least according to Jenny. "It's about vampires" she says when asked in a mock interview in the middle of the album. The concepts are broader than that, but the framework has certainly been set for us, and we can use this for our own interpretation of the songs.

During a moment in "Untamed Region", she whispers "there's blood on my bed, didn't think it was time yet", then a few lines later "i have blood powers". So there again, we are given two things which can have different meanings, is the first about menstruation? or has she feed last night after her metamorphosis, leaving blood on her sheets.

"In the red", the third track, we can a hyperventilating Hval going through the changes of a mortal human through to blood sucking vampiress. The constant breathing on this track, is so unnerving but effective, and brings you through the transformative process like you have entered her via a musical worm hole she created just for the listener.

"The Great Undressing" presents us with an ode to yearning.

"Like capitalism
It works like unrequited love that way
It never rests
Just like I need the love
I'm not getting from you"

Jenny is alluding to the struggles of relationships and commerce, at least in this writer's opinion.
She is choosing the evil that she knows will keep her going. It's almost as if she is accepting capitalism as a way of life, even though she doesn't like it. Much like the love she isn't getting, which seems to be hard laboured and begged for if it ever eventuates. 

If Hval has turned into a vampire, we could see this representing a moment when she asks for acceptance from her lover, acceptance of her new form.

"Any recognition is a reward", again maybe emoting the disillusionment that many women have when trying to be seen or heard, even if it is just the recognition of one man. 

"In these ikea white walls", from the track "Period Piece" recalls commentary on the generic nature of consumerism.

In all of her work, Hval creates phrases, rather than concrete coherent lines. They have an impressionistic quality, relating back to idea of giving the listeners the bare bones concept. 

The instrumental arrangements are used as a backdrop, and really don't do a lot to further enhance the ideas or lyrics on the tracklist. It is standard fare for Hval's output. Although there are moments of brilliance in the sounds contained on Blood Bitch, overall it is there to create a mood. Lots of industrial slowed beats and dark synths linger around but never impose themselves except for a few tracks, namely "Conceptual Romance", where we hear the lead single which is probably the most straight forward track on this album. 

It's not to say that the instrumentals are buried in the mix, everything is brought up to the front, but they don't often feel like a focal point for the tracks structure.

"The Plague" pretty much conjures the most obvious thoughts you may have before you listen to it. Lots of layered demonic screaming, chaos stewing. 

As we track along the album, we are already immersed in the idea, that this set of tracks is centred around vampires. We have constant references to blood, eating other people, body metamorphosis, alienation. 

In the closer "Lorna", we have the last verses of the album. They paint a picture of someone stuck in an existential crisis, and to add insult to injury, this self realisation has come at a big price. It captures the poignancy of realising you are not who you were, but what you are now. What she is now is something she doesn't like, and it seems she needs help:

"No one ever told me
Or taught me not to contain
Or kept existing
But there was no language
Does anyone have any language for it?"

Can we find it?"

This album is an enigma, it's monumental but not earth shattering. It speaks in volumes, and says very little sometimes.

Jenny asks if we can find the language, the language to help her communicate with the world around her, to help ourselves do it too. 

Maybe we can't, but in the meantime we can have a transcendental experience trying to.

Callan Cummings

Reasons Jazz Fusion Has Saved Your Life

Ironically, any guitar so called "aficianado" will tell you about clapton, jimmy page, hank marvin and all the icons who are of somewhat an iconic status, yet seem highly derivitive compared to some of the guitarist which came out of the jazz fusion camp.

You have to remember the landscape of music was dramatically altered during the early 60's to early 70's.

The advent of moog synthesizers, informed us of the sounds which were to become commonplace in music later on and today still. Rock and roll adversly shocked a whole generation of adolescents into submission, ultimately denotating any traces left of be bop jazz or broadway/easy listening music which was popular amongst the youth at the time.

It passed, quintets became skiffle groups, mods became the new wave of cool. You couldn't pick up any music publication or newspaper entertainment section without seeing the fab four or the rolling stones on the cover.

However, boiling away at the surface, rock music informed a lot of jazz musicians about crossover popularity, with the beatles incorporating sitars and the likes of eastern sounds to complement the sonic palette of the music.

Jazz saved people from alienation. What was swing became smaller due to amplification, huge swing bands proved too expensive to book, smaller groups playing at intimate venues such as downtown new york's mintons playhouse and such were the places to go instead. However the smaller it got, the more alienating the music seemed to be for people, it was reduced to smaller venues and there was more emphasis on pushing forward with improvisation than maintaining strong melodies, and this drew away crowds that loved dancing. People embraced this music by sitting back, usually people fond of instrumentation were more involved in the be-bop scene than your regular out going types.

Was it dying? Yes. Jazz died a little with the british invasion, in fact the first signs of it's partial decay was when Elvis came onto the scene. The King ignited everything. It was the cool thing. Jazz was now like on the fringe of everything, and within certain circles it was still appreciated, but while there was less vocalised jazz, people turned to the vocal stylings of a man that was melting hearts across the globe, and because of that Jazz was no longer at the forefront of music.

Along with musicals, Jazz as an art form was weird to people now. It was the musical equivilent of spoiled devondale milk in your fridge, it was good while it lasted, BUT IT GONE BAD!

In the mid sixties, although no one really noticed it, the cambridge scene was prominent in the U.K. A band called Soft Machine were incorporating elements of Jazz into their sound, creating a "fusion" sound. It was recognised as a novel approach and proved popular amongst the english music at the time.

The importance of such a man in music, whom I'm about to write about, is probably biased and exaggerated because of the fact that the writer is a huge fan. But nonetheless, Miles Davis has been often maligned by critics and fans for "abandoning his jazz origins", however this couldn't be further from the truth. If anything, he opened up to different sounds and embraced this by incorporating them into his own music. Jazz was in the doldrums, but Miles got Jazz out of there.

After meeting funk singer Betty Mabry in 1967, he turned to a more electric sound, incorporating fender rhoades keyboards and electric bass to his sound. It wasn't long before guitarist John Mclaughlin was recruited to play guitar on his albums.

The seminal release, 1970's Bitches Brew, is a watershed album. Considered to be one of the best, and also one of the worst Jazz albums of all time, depending on who you ask. It changed everything, and it's influence must not be overlooked in the canon of contemporary music.

Miles davis soon after this release played at rock festivals. That's right rock festivals. A trumpet player, in front of tens of thousands playing his music to the masses. Brass was back in, bands were beginnning to take the hint and started using saxophonists and brass on their albums. Chicago were using a horn section as part of their band, it influenced a number of different groups.

Jazz did rock a favour, and Rock did Jazz a favour in return. Rock and roll today without incorporating elements of Jazz, would prove to be stale. Because remember that synthesizers were also apart of the jazz fusion sound, and are utilised in rock music so much today.

The ebb and flow of music will always be, bands over-extending there experimental zone out jam 20 minute pieces,to three chord punchy straight to the point numbers. So it will be one for a while, until people get sick of it, and then will alternate.

But without the experimentation of fusion, today we might not of had that choice to choose from.