'Love Saves The Day 2014' [PREVIEW] Published May 2014 BRISTOL LIVE

Typically, the way for a festival to show it’s full potential is to be outstanding in it’s field.

Usually, city festivals have to work that little bit harder to appease the hardened hedonist. However, more city based fests are appearing with every year that passes, and they seem to be tapping into the collective conscious of the modern reveler.
Spending the day making merry and then having the option of retiring to the comfort of your own bed is surely something any discerning festivalist secretly desires. 

Love Saves The Day is now in it’s senior year, and it’s gone from strength to strength.
From it’s first soggy, queue ridden iteration, to last years sun kissed belter, it feels as though the loved up leviathan is unstoppable. 

With festival tickets selling out months in advance, and Stokes Croft’s latest addition, The Love Inn, packed to the rafters on most days, it seems as though love is airborne and infecting the city. 

The pleasure mongers at Team Love seem to consistently bridge the gap between popularity and discovery when it comes to line ups, and seem to keep all types of raver in favour. With acts as diverse as Todd Terje, Quantic, Shy FX, and Horse Meat Disco spanning the weekend, no one should be left wanting. 

In keeping with tradition, Saturday is filled with housey delights in the form of of Subb-An, Crazy P Soundsystem, Motor City Drum Ensemble and Eats Everything to name but a handful. Headliner Annie Mac will no doubt bring a few pairs of Air Max through the gate, but the smart money is on the live stylings of Todd Terje to make Saturday a day to remember.

Sunday caters to Bristol’s more even tempered denizens with the likes of Quantic, Gentleman’s Dub Club, Laid Blak and Neneh Cherry heading the bill. 

Greg Wilson’s edit heavy behemoth of a set will no doubt end up becoming a serious highlight, with local crew SHAPES and D&B godfather Shy FX providing some serious energy, there’ll be little time for rest. 

If you were concerned with what to do with your life before and after festivities, The Love Inn will be providing all kinds of entertainment to the people of Stokes Croft and beyond. 

Pre parties and aprés shindig entertainment are all catered for by the new addition to the Love family, and their kitchen can provide you with probably the only thing you’ll eat all weekend.

For the third year in a row Love Saves The Day is gearing up to be an absolute belter and is all Bristol has been talking about for the last few soggy months.

Sod your fields, this city festival is cementing a solid reputation.

‘Arbiters of Mood’ [ARTICLE]- Published October 2013 BRISTOL LIVE

“I never loved you!” she bellows as the door slams behind her. 

The pages of incriminating correspondence lay torn into shreds, along with his heart.
As he longingly gazes through the dusty window he focusses on his lost love as she walks into the arms of her new beau.

In the distance the gramophone plays ‘Agadoo’ by Black Lace.

Mood and music are bedfellows whether consensual or not. 

The pathetic fallacy of music is intrinsic and everyone craves those perfect soundtrack moments to life, whether it be the beauty of running toward your star crossed lover from the other side of a beach or staring wistfully through a rain peppered window lamenting the loss of a family pet, there is a soundtrack that is appropriate and one that feels out of place. 

Not everyone has a perpetual OST running through their heads mind, that’s a curse that only befalls a select few of us, but everyone finds solace in music that matches their mental state. It’s much easier to be on level with someone singing of heartache that mirrors your own troubles than some nubile tween shrieking about improbable promiscuity and unlikely abuse of substances that they read about in their mums copy of Woman’s Weekly.

A problem shared is a problem halved and all that, so it stands to reason that you’d want to spend time with someone equally as miserable as you, especially a musician. 

At first glance it seems strange that one would purposefully do something to enflame an already miserable disposition, but imagine listening to Lesley Gore’s saccharin classic ‘Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows’ after a visit to the oncology department, or celebrating your promotion by drawing the blackout curtains and listening to Radiohead in a damp, candlelit attic. 

There are, of course, ways to tip the scale in your favour. 

For all it’s wonder, the human body is remarkably gullible. There are many magical substances that trick your body into giving more than your RDA of happiness. 

This little workaround has a profound effect on the enjoyment of music, as anyone who broadened their horizons as a youth will know.

The heightened sense of empathy and understanding that comes from the abuse of particular narcotics not only affects your musical experience but the music itself. 

MDMA’s tendency to incite mutual rapture was most definitely not overlooked by the architects of the acid house scene that ruled the 90’s. 

It doesn’t take long for public demand to shape the scene. People wanting music to heighten a sense of euphoria will eventually lead to more and more tunes becoming more and more euphoric. It’s economics 101.

That’s not to say there’s some sort of equilibrium where mood and music is concerned, just a correlation. It’s just further proof of how innate both are within each other.  

The blues wouldn’t be the blues without feeling blue, and happy hardcore would be even less credible if it weren’t so sickeningly chipper.

If this is something we’re aware of as listeners it should be glaringly obvious to those in the business of creating music.

If an artist is particularly depressed or troubled (like any true artist should be) it would stand to reason that their creative output would reflect that poise, the same if they are vapid and transparent. It is that very transference of mood that turns a piece of music into a piece of art. 

We, as a listener, are in a unique position. We don’t have to entertain a musicians misery if we don’t feel the need to, we can just switch off when they get a bit whiny, preachy, dopey or sneezy. We are the arbiters of mood.

At least that’s what we’re led to believe anyway. Music is a remarkably powerful thing and  rather adept at altering moods without permission. The somber music that helped you through those dark times is now heavily loaded with emotion and it will most definitely remind you of that the next time you visit. Equally, the upbeat soundtrack to your jubilant days now has the ability to give you a dopamine enema at a moments notice.

When people talk about their favourite album it isn’t because they’re consistently blown away by the production value or the lyrical elegance, it’s because the elegant lyrics and deft production conjour memories, fond or otherwise.

It’s because that music’s tone was so in sync with your own at the time of your first encounter that such a strong relationship was formed. 

Now you have the ability to be transported back to that moment and relive the feelings once again. It’s this relationship that makes you able to create your own tone and it’s this relationship that is able to make ‘Agadoo’ seem like the saddest song in the world. 

Letherette- ‘Letherette’ [review] - Published March 2013

Wolverhampton has a lot going for it.

It was the first city to have automatic traffic lights installed in 1927.
It’s within the top 11% of local authority areas in England and Wales (excluding London Boroughs) for public transport use when travelling to the workplace and apparently has a football team who play better than some but worse than others.

Cracking place.

Aside from musical heavyweights like Slade, Wolverhampton isn’t really known for it’s high brow music and art scene. It’s more famous for still having a Beatties department store, which I find both surprising and depressing in equal measure.

It may too be somewhat surprising to discover that the home of over 400 council appointed, post war bungalows is also home to a duo of masterful producers who gained the fully warranted attention of Mr. Current himself, Gilles Peterson. 

Letherette spent a good while cutting their teeth on hip hop inspired beat smithery, using the lineage of their namesake as their sample inspiration. 

You can’t base your name on a Grace Jones album and not expect to give something back.

With the latest slew of releases on the arbiters of dope, Ninja Tune, they’ve shown signs of a new direction. Beautifully crafted boom baps still remain but they have padded their release out with floaty 4/4 endeavours that blur the lines between tradition and new prospects. Much like the opening of the M5 which, since 1970, has provided vital links between Wolverhampton and the South West. 

Opening single ‘D&T’ plays like the hazy memory of a 70’s beach party. Stuttering vocal cuts, lush pad stabs and an epic phased guitar solo make up an offering that can only be described with the words ‘summery as you like’.

Tracks like ‘I Always Wanted You Back’, ‘Cold Clam’ and ‘Boosted’ are the above standard fair that gained them the notoriety they much deserved back in 2010, but the smart money is on their new offerings.

Offerings such as ‘Restless’. A track that has more than a few inklings of Discosure’s pre hype belters. 

Or perhaps ‘Warstones’ with it’s camp, French, squelchy excellence.

If that doesn’t take your fancy, ‘After Dawn’ and it’s Justice-esque, floaty majesty will surely float your yacht.

In short, this album is the showcase of an act well and truly in the midst of a breakthrough. 

Not content with resting on their already gilded laurels, they’re willing and able to make progress that reveals their true potential.

A jewel in the crown of the West Midlands second largest urban subdivision.

That’s not an accolade to be taken lightly.

‘Portable Music’ [article]- Published July 2013

I have absolutely no qualms in admitting I dance to car alarms. 

I’ve been known to ‘box some beat’ to an assortment of birdsong and have hummed away merrily to the drone of the fruit juicer at work.

I spent the run up to my formative years being referred to as “Biffer” Re: my penchant for drumming on tables/ pets/ family members with a squeaky blue hammer and I 100% agree that baked beans are “the musical fruit”. I do believe “the cacophonous legume” would be more apt but Heinz have been ignoring my emails.

If, like myself, you have a constant 4/4 beat running through your head you can hear music wherever you are and it’s that idea of providing a soundtrack to everyday life that everyone finds so tantalising and subsequently why there are over 300 million Apple brand music players sitting in peoples pockets quietly waiting to break one day after your warranty expires.

I remember my first Walkman clear as day. It was my step dad’s and it lived in the shed.
The Walkman that is, not Alan.
It was covered in sawdust and the pause button didn’t work properly but it was systematically placed in my possession and subsequently returned to the shed until it eventually became mine... and I loved it like the fat kid loves cake.

The thrill of taking music wherever I wanted never wore thin.
Unfortunately the thrill of only having one tape waned fairly sharpish.

After that I was utterly hooked and over the next 12 years accumulated what can only be described as a gaggle of assorted portable media solution devices:

3 portable cassette players
2 Discmans/men/persons

3 Minidisc players

2 nondescript Mpeg Layer 3 devices

2 boomboxes

And a grand total of 4 iPod’s.

I’ve fallen foul many a time to the ‘charms’ of my laptop’s speakers instead of taking that 3 foot stretch to plug her in to a set of lovely Yamaha’s and it’s because of that ease of use provided by a portable medium that we find more and more music geared towards al fresco listening. People are now even able to create music in the great outdoors by utilising entire production suites that fit in the palm of your hand. Admittedly it has to be an abnormally large hand but who are you to judge? At some point the ability to hold 3 ruby red grapefruit in one span is going to come in really useful and the cries of ‘Big Mitts Belshaw’ will fall on deaf ears.

Being able to purchase music from iTunes while out and about was something that always irked me though. Mainly because the adverts propagated the idea of buying Jack Johnson and Norah Jones on the fly. No one should be given the opportunity to do that. It’s a matter of ethics. Also, allowing a major corporation access to your listening habits and inviting them to provide you with inspiration is only going to end in tears.

It pains me that people like tubby hipster James ‘LCD Soundsystem’ Murphy can conscientiously decide to produce an album (2006’s- “45:33”) in collaboration with a major footwear company that’s single purpose is to provide the soundtrack to a perfect workout.

The excitement that surrounds portable tunage is that you can take the music from home out of it’s domain. Drown out the mundane diegetic sounds of life and score your own as you see fit. Create exquisite juxtaposition’s of clamour and serene vista’s and provide yourself with a level of escapism the confines of your home could not see fit to loan you.

Not run through your town centre’s mandatory fountain complex quaffing a Starbucks while you consume the bastard love child of corporate idiocy and trend humping in which a podgy sell out merchant paradoxically tells you the best way to shed a few pounds.

Like a bomb in a bookshop, certain people just want to destroy something novel.

It makes no real odds to me though. I’m totally under the influence.

I now can’t imagine being without music on my person. There is a generation emerging that were practically born with an iPod in their hands and the phenomenon knows no class boundaries. It provides to all and sundry. One and all. And eventually people will begin to take it all for granted.

But, if you can remember the time you left your girlfriend and her mates at the campsite, took a 30 minute walk through sharp bushes and winding rock paths, perched yourself in a throne of boulders and watched the sun set into the sea with ‘Narayan’ by the Prodigy as your soundtrack...

Then you remember why you got so excited the first time you blew the sawdust away and pressed play for the first time.

Boards Of Canada- ‘Tomorrow's Harvest' [review] Published June 2013 LONDON IN STEREO

Think of all the incredible things the average human being could do in the space of 8 years...

You could celebrate just over 7 birthdays for a start. 

I’ve no doubt there are a lot of other things as well. The point is, it’s a pretty long while.

Imagine what a pair of Scottish virtuosos could do given the same amount of time. 

You’d imagine something epic, like drinking truly ludicrous amounts of IRN BRU or deep frying everything within a 5 mile radius of Inverness. 

In the 70,000 hours or so that have elapsed since 2005, brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin have managed to make 62 minutes of music under their Boards Of Canada moniker. 62 minutes. That’s like Nelson Mandela, after 26 years pondering the state of Africa, finally being released from incarceration and presenting a half arsed manifesto for incremental, long term change in South Africa’s road safety legislation. 

Delayed gratification only works if the end product is truly something worth waiting for.

Having to wait builds expectations that can rarely be matched.

Now, being somewhat of a veteran when it comes to mind crushing cynicism I was fully prepared to spew a bit of bile, make some mildly racist remarks about the Scottish, put on ‘The Campfire Headphase’ and pretend this whole thing never happened.

No such luck.

Tomorrow’s Harvest is a true return to form, although I’m not sure if you can return to form if you never deviated from it in the first place.

This album is like giving yourself a hug, warm and familiar yet empty and uncomfortable. The sound that Boards have mastered and truly made their own.  

There are nods to their glory days like the 1970’s infomercial fanfare that kickstarts proceedings, stuttering vocals and the familiar sound of the Roland SH-101 synthesiser peppered throughout. The purely instrumental vignettes that glue the tracks together are of the standard, glorious fare we’ve all come accustomed to and the droning, uneasy synthscapes are plucked right out of 1998.

However, there’s something about this offering that seems different. It feels darker and much more definite. It feels as though the last 8 years have been spent painstakingly mastering every sombre, lonely drone to the point of absolute precision. 

It’s this combination of sharp production techniques and desolate atmospherics that make the theme of this LP so distinct.

If, heaven forbid, Google does become sentient and chooses to turn our nuclear weapons against us for the ‘greater good’ I couldn’t imagine a better soundtrack to accompany an endless trek across the barren wastelands. This album encapsulates and invokes the beauty of isolation and in turn makes it one of the best Boards Of Canada releases to date.

If you have to wait until 2021 for a new album, so be it. You may just have finished exploring this one by then.

James Holden- 'The Inheritors' [review] Published June 2013 LONDON IN STEREO

There’s a fine line between beauty and chaos. 

Think Jackson Pollock, think Picasso, think Lindsey Lohan.

Visionaries who blurred the edge of attraction and disarray.

Seriously, some of her mugshots are hot.

Allure and anarchy seem to be odd bedfellows, but like any estranged relationship the result of them bunking up can often be something pretty intense.

This adage is especially true in regard to music. Anyone who has heard Otomo Yoshihde’s New Jazz Orchestra version of Jim O’Rourke’s ‘Eureka’ will know what I’m talking about. Right guys? I can wait until you YouTube it.

Being thrown from the relative safety of syncopated rhythms and major chords by clamour and cacophony can be somewhat appealing. It’s like a subtle sex reference in a family film, you know it’s wrong but it piques your interest.

Now, to say James Holden doesn’t do things ‘by the book’ when it comes to electronic music would be spot on. 

His aggressive apathy toward the more popular side of electronic music isn’t something he hides; the title of his fantastic 2006 album ‘The Idiots Are Winning’ proves that.

It should come as no surprise then to find that ‘The Inheritors’ is a continuation of this ethos. For a start, It’s named after a William Golding novel that portrays modern man as strange godlike beings who use light and fire to bewilder lesser mortals.

If that’s not a dig at David Guetta I don’t know what is.

With those connotations duly noted, it’s the music itself that really sets it apart from the apparent bilge it strives to sit above. Tribal yet futuristic, bold but shaky, loud and subdued. It’s made of so many sonic contradictions it appears to be confused about it’s purpose, and yet it is presented in such a definite package that the bedlam it consists of is most certainly intentional.

This offering is much more atmospheric and not as immediately accessible as his last LP. It’s clearly the work of an incredibly talented producer who wants to cut all ties with the electronic scene in it’s current form. It’s both an example of an artist throwing their toys out of the pram and a gift from a true talent who wants to educate the masses about music that doesn’t need to be categorised by genre.

This album feels like an aggressive statement against the big business of ‘EDM’ and whatever it is Disclosure are calling themselves these days, and it’s through that statement that it’s elegance becomes apparent. It’s anarchical and confusing but it’s ideology is admirable and clear.

This is most definitely the front line of beauty and chaos.

Musical Identity/ Music is a Strange Beast- [article] published september 2011

Music is a strange beast.

She’ll make you laugh. She’ll make you cry. She can anger you. She can sometimes sneak in at 4 in the morning stinking of sambuca and Hugo Boss. She can claim she’s been ‘out with the girls’ all she wants but the wry smile under her smeared lipstick betrays her. Whether she’s the demure thinking man’s crumpet or the tarted-up pop princess, everyone’s had a go and had a ruddy good time to boot. You’ll always go back for more, whether intentional or instinctive, and once that’s happened she’s got her claws in.

Anyone who’s done something as seemingly nonchalant as wearing a band t-shirt has been privy to her truly manipulative ways. You like a band. You buy a t-shirt to show support. There’s nothing darker at work.

Allow me to be the first to shout “balls!” You’ve been had mate. You’ve bought a t-shirt to let everyone know you like said band. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that mind.

I love my ‘J DILLA CHANGED MY LIFE’ t-shirt but I’m very aware of the attention it garners. I’m ok with that though, because he did and we’re not talking about me anyway.

If you love something you want people to know about it. You can claim you’re humble until the Aberdeen Angus commute home but a couple of gin and tonics will always loosen your tongue. There’s no better way to portray allegiance than a good ol’ fashioned uniform.

If you like hip hop, dress as though you’re between wardrobes following miraculous gastric band surgery. If metal is your bag you could do worse than snagging any item of clothing that’s really, really, really dark blue, dying your hair really, really, really dark blue and growing a ginger beard. Or if your particular brand is punk/pop/emo/shouty music, go ahead and look like you’ve been sexually assaulted by a clown.

People can indeed adore the output a particular genre provides without wearing the accompanying garb though. You can also say that a style of music doesn’t have a uniform, and you’d be right – but a scene does.

Everyone enjoys a sense of belonging and music, that little harpy, provides the grandest of communities. But like any harpy worth her salt, music can draw you in and make you lose yourself. When you find yourself getting vexed at ‘man dem mercing your crepes’ at a gig or covering yourself in tattoos of an artist who has the shelf life of a reduced Muller Rice, you’ve likely lost sight of what got you hooked in the first place. There’s a fine line between defining your musical identity and letting your musical identity define you. If the only reason you listen to music is because it matches the particular philosophy your scene possesses then claiming you love it seems somewhat invalid.

As David Hargreaves et al testify to in their succinctly titled book, What Are Musical Identities And Why Are They Important?:

“Because music is essentially a social activity – it is something we do along with and for others, either as listeners or as cocreators – there is a strong argument that the social functions of music subsume the cognitive and emotional functions in certain respects.”

They also go on to use words like ‘interpreted’ and ‘saxophonist’.

I’ve always felt that the personal appeal of music should outweigh the social aspects. It’s much easier to appreciate a more obscure style of music with the backing of your peers, but if that appreciation is grounded in social terms then it’s less of a personal identity and more of an ideology. As a bloke called Nicholas Cook said:

“In today’s world, deciding what music to listen to is a significant part of deciding and announcing to people not just who you want to be…but who you are.”

So I shall announce to you thus: “Who I am is a man who likes J Dilla, but I don’t want to be the kind of person who has to wear a ‘J DILLA CHANGED MY LIFE’ t-shirt to let you know that.”

But he did though, and we’re not talking about me anyway.

Lone -'Airglow Fires' [review] PUBLISHED JULY 2013- NOW THEN

LONE- ‘AIRGLOW FIRES’ [MUSIC REVIEW] 

PUBLISHED July 2013

We seem to always be awaiting the return of the prodigal sun.

It’s like a family member who’s perpetually away on foreign business. You learn to cope without them, come to terms with the fact they’re gone, then become infatuated to the point of worship when they come bouncing back.

The people of these British Isles have such a collective vitamin D deficiency that rickets are a genuine worry.

We see our star so little that the Scottish water board have recently taken it upon themselves to add the vitamin to their national supply, although there won’t be any real benefit until it becomes one of the many additives in IRN BRU.

Any opportunity to rekindle our estranged relationship with tanning is rinsed for all it’s worth. We thrive on anything the least bit summery. Cheap strawberries, disposable barbecues and the odd hosepipe ban make the grey days we have to endure seem a little more bearable, and there’s nothing quite like sun drenched music to make the humours a little less tepid. 

Just as we’re all a few showers away from a full washout a ray hope comes in the form of Lone. The first piece of fresh material from the Nottingham virtuoso in over a year, ‘Airglow Fires’, is a sun kissed belter of the highest order. 

Bursting at the seams with lush choral pads, twinkling synths and a freshly baked Chicago groove, the whole package is a much welcomed dose of warmth.

The track’s 2 step themed rhythm section and sporadic melody lend it a bounce that’s impossible to ignore. Floaty breakdowns and dense drops eventually wind down into a balmy beat skit, cut from the same cloth as the efforts from sophomore album ‘Lemurian’.

Keeping with it’s toasty theme, the B side ‘Begin To Begin’ plays out as the perfect accompaniment to a tropical dusk. Muted stabs, soft cymbal rides and yet more dulcet female pads lazily crawl through a sublime blanket of reverb. The whole tracks’s foundation is a drowsy 4/4 that perks things up enough to make it a real eyes closed swaying number.

Lone continues to adapt his style masterfully, and he seems to have tailored this adaptation to the season we covet the most.

As we wait for the prodigal sun to grace us again, the return of the correct spelling will do just fine.

Love Saves The Day [INTERNSHIP SUBMISSION] Submitted April 2013

Typically, the way for a festival to show it’s full potential is to be outstanding in it’s field

However, the modern reveler seeks to take back the city. 

The appeal of civic shenanigans are indisputable and neighbourhood hedonism is something firmly on the creative minds of Bristol’s art and music scene.

With a background in rising South West institutions See No Evil and In: Motion the team at Love Saves The Day set to treat Castle Park right and dote on her something rotten for a second time.

The 25th of May is due to bring a primed Bristol distinctly cutting edge music on the cusp of the Old City. Now in its sophomore year, the festival boasts a heavy duty roster covering all aspects of the underground music scene that inspired it.

Institutions and new blood, heavy hitters and underground gems all stand level pegging in a celebration of all things electronic. 

Bonobo, AlunaGeorge, Bicep, Crazy P and Mr. Scruff make up a small percentage of a table of contents aptly illuminating the pulling power of Bristol’s desire to party and it’s need to do it properly.

With a locally sourced posse of curators including the likes of provincial party starters Just Jack, Futureboogie and Shapes the ethos of community is clear and the idea of a party for and by the people is distinct.

It’s rare for an event to be born from so much love. Savour the day when it finally arrives. 

[Review] Synkro- Acceptance [ Published In NOW THEN issue 59 February 2013]

Paradoxically, minimalism has a lot going for it.

We all either went through a period where we thought we liked minimal techno or a period where we had no idea it was around. 

They’re both essentially the same thing.

Mildly tedious electronic fad or no, there’s a certain amount of beauty in restraint. 

The simple act of holding a little back can open up whole new worlds of gratification.

It’s the same principle that applies to only eating half a tube of Pringles or watching no more than 10 minutes of absolutely any Michael Bay movie.

Allowing simple musical motifs to speak volumes is something modern music has been indulging in since the 1960’s. The ‘New York Hypnotic School’ of classical musicians, which included the likes of Steve Reich and Philip Glass, pioneered a style of sonics that modern musicians such as Aphex Twin and Fennesz adapted into ambient and drone soundscapes. Take the reconstructed floaty sounds of the ‘future garage’ scene that reared it’s head a few years back and welcome to the subject at hand. 

Minimalist, ambient, forward thinking, upfront, future bass music. 

Before you get any ideas, I’m coining that term so back off.

Manchester’s Synkro has been forging his name as a garage/ 2 step artist for a good old while but it wasn’t until 20011’s absolutely exquisite ‘Look At Yourself’ that you could really see his true floaty potential. 

His latest LP ‘Acceptance’ is the sound of an artist who has truly grown into their own style. Packed to the gills with lush consonant harmonies, delayed etherial vocals and crisp, expertly mastered beats everything ambles along at a pace that betrays it’s true 135BPM roots. 

The addition of reverb heavy guitar strummings on nearly half of the offerings show a brief foray into a depth of new musicality, or just reinforcement of the idea that guitars in electronic music make you seem like more of a credible artist.

Pick one.

It’s production value is so high that it makes speakers sing. Little Burial-esque nuances of rain and traffic slip through unobtrusively and bass lines feel like soft damp cuddles.

It’s warm and familiar yet current and edgy. 

Like a kitten smoking crack. 

If this lush offering could be described as anything it would be whoopee makin’ music for the bass generation.

Minimalist, ambient, forward thinking, upfront, future, baby making music. 

Coined it. 

[Preview] Four Tet @ In: Motion [Published in Fear Of Fiction Oct 2012]

There’s nothing quite like witnessing someone at the height of their career.

I call it the ‘Under Seige moment’. That brief but glorious snapshot where Seagal wasn’t clinically obese and didn’t require a stand in when the script called for a close up of his hands.

That’s where Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) is right now. The height of his career that is, not 

helping to ease Steven Seagal’s metacarpal issues.

The man can seem to do no wrong. At least not in my eyes, or indeed in the eyes of an anonymous friend of mine who spent the majority of his secret set at Bestival sobbing. Quite right too. It was blooming glorious, which is a given whenever Signor Tet is involved.

So, if you needed another reason to get excited about the 5th of October, other than it being my birthday, it should be that Four Tet himself is gracing the hard concrete floor of Motion with the Hessle Audio troupe and fellow virtuoso Floating Points.

A line up that good can be pretty overwhelming. 

I’ve already packed the Kleenex for Katy.

[Preview] In: Motion [Publish in Fear Of Fiction Sept 2012]

People are always waffling on about seasons.

Soccer season.

Ski seasons.

“Oooh that chicken’s a tad bland. It could do with some seasoning.”

Bee season.

Seasons allow a modicum of anticipation. They provide heightened pleasure through the act of withholding their potential.
All except the chicken one.

It’s because of this that simple folk like you and I get giddy as arseholes at the prospect of the Autumn/ Winter clubbing season. My former people of the North get Manchester’s Warehouse Project and we, my friends, get the epic In: Motion.

This years whale of a roster contains the talents of Four Tet, Floating Points, Josh Wink, Public Enemy, Joy Orbison, Kerri Chandler, Disclosure, Jamie Jones and Fatboy chuffing Slim to name but a tiny handful. There are big name takeovers from Hessle Audio, Futureboogie and Cocoon and a new year’s rinse out as the cherry atop the disco fudge cake.

I’m fully aware that, like me, your September 29th will be spent celebrating International Coffee Day but that evening should be graced with In: Motion’s massive Jamie Jones led opener.

The wait is over. It’s In: Season.

[Review] Four Tet- Pink [Publish in Fear Of Fiction Aug 2012]

In a predominantly digital world of distribution the idea of vinyl only releases seems fairly alien to some.

All and sundry are rocking an ‘i’ something or other but not everyone is decked out with a set of 1200’s.

Limited vinyl releases have been about since records began (pun unashamedly intended) and as outmoded as they seem to some, they show no real sign of disappearing. Perhaps it’s a defiant final middle finger to the remnants of the Napster generation, or maybe we were so quick to blindly accept change we dismissed tradition.

You know, whichever’s funnier.

Happy to scratch everyone’s itch, Kieran Hebden has provided an opportunity to snag some of his tastiest morsels from the past year and a smidge.

Morsels like, his Fabriclive exclusives ‘Locked/Pyramid’, the stupendous ‘Pinnacles’ from his Daphni co-release, cracking newbie ‘Ocoras’ and 128 Harps, the one I don’t like.

Couple this with two new tracks which are sans release and you’ve got an ace LP.

Or, if like me, you own 80% of these already you’ll feel like he’s dropped a deuce.

You know, whichever’s funnier.

[Review] The Cinematic Orchestra- In Motion 1 [Published In NOW THEN Issue 52 July 2012]

It’s very rare that an artist can live up to their name.

Prince being an obvious exception.

A performance alias is generally just intended to make you sound cooler, like DJ Shitmat or Big Pooh.

It’s not often an artist’s moniker gives a apt description of what they do. At least I very much hope so in the case of Big Pooh.

A nom de Ableton Live is bloody difficult to choose. I myself have been through many a different branding, my personal favourite being ‘TJ Bass’. Not least because it made me sound about as cool as the interior of a McDonald’s apple pie following a thirty minute tanning session inside a Breville. 

For The Cinematic Orchestra, their name became somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy. 

After receiving masses of critical acclaim for their first album ‘Motion’ they ended up bagging the opportunity to compose a modern score for the classic silent film ‘Man With The Movie Camera’. 

In addition, they also composed the soundtrack to many people’s relaxed drinking endeavours.

I’ve never worked in, or imbibed in a bar that didn’t have their second album ‘Everyday’ nestled neatly somewhere in a playlist.

It comes as no surprise that after 2007’s self professed  “Soundtrack to an imaginary film” ‘Ma Fleur’, head cinematic orchestrator Jason Swinscoe would want to curate a collection of modern day scorings of classical cinema.

Considering I knocked my AS Level in film studies on the head just after learning how to spell mise en scene, some of the avant- garde pictures in question are a tad beyond me. 

Thankfully, a lack of cinematographic smarts is of no real importance.

The music on offer is stunning. With unnerving and evocative submissions by Austrian beatsmith Dorian concept, piano movements from Austin Perelta and beautiful ensembles by The Cinematic Orchestra themselves. 

Being unaware of the original visuals these pieces were intended for opens up new opportunities for listening. 

It’s especially rewarding if you combine this collection of ornate orchestral pieces with 1992 action epic, Under Siege. 

For example, the truly chilling ‘Entr’acte’ begins with lush chords and slowly develops into a motif of rising strings and moments of discordant tension which coalesce beautifully with the kitchen scene where Seagal makes that bomb out of a mug of oil and a microwave. 

Investing a little time and being prepared to let your noggin take you on an epic journey makes this release something truly special. Not giving it the attention it deserves means you risk missing out on the incredibly moving qualities it possesses and that reward is not worth squandering.

Another chapter which cements the idea that The Cinematic Orchestra are just that, maestros of imagery. 

Let’s hope Big Pooh doesn’t cement anything for a while.

[Review] Lone- Galaxy Garden [Published in Now Then Issue 50 May 2012]

Why do all Blink 182 songs sound the same? Why did michael jackson keep banging on about the colours black and white? Why in the name of all that is good in the world do people keep listening to Skrillex?

Its all about artists ‘doing a Glenn Miller’ and finding their sound. 

You can spot a Lone track a mile off. Any time you drift off and start to imagine a nightclub themed bonus stage on Ecco the dolphin, or start seeing colours like aquamarine or fuschia you’re most likely listening to Lone. Either that or you ate the ‘funny’ fruit pastille your flat mate left on his windowsill when he moved out. 

Lone’s use of scattered chords and notes akin to that of an autistic child playing Chopin, are all his own. His Leitmotif if you will. Like the 9th chord progression at the end of a blues song, or when Switch has to put his name in every bloody remix he does because he managed to find a sample that sounded vaguely like his moniker.

I’m a massive advocate of Lone’s signature sonics, so when I say all his songs sound the same it’s both informed and perfectly acceptable. It’s the same principal as me getting away with talking Patois on account of my ex girlfriend being black.

You know where you stand with Lone. You know it’s going to sound like someone playing a  Mega Drive at a warehouse party.

Like freshly washed bed sheets, his new offering is suitably familiar and yet different enough to pique interest.

The two collaborations with Sepalcure’s Machinedrum are stand out efforts. The output of both artists seemingly made for partnership, with tracks packed to the gills with big 808’s, lush pads and haunted vocals.

Floaty, early 90’s rave culture is the order of the day for tracks like Raindance and the absurdly good Crystal Caverns 1991 and everything else is smattered with a healthy doses of Boards Of Canada and Chicago house.

Frenetic yet perfectly under control. Verging on intense but always subdued and above all produced and mastered to the brink of perfection. 

This album is most definitely a progression from previous efforts, just not in the grandiose way you’d expect from a fifth album.

So fixed is Lone in the idea of his own sound, he can obsess on fine tuning it to make sure it will always stay familiar.

[Preview] Jazzy Jeff- Live at Lakota Bristol (Published in Fear Of Fiction May 2012 Issue)

I was always a sickly child. 

I used to blame it on the diet of John West and Philidelphia cheese spread upon which I was raised.

I spent most of my free time in my school playground relaxing and occasionally playing basketball.

One fateful day two older boys decided to cause a ruckus in my local community. Not standing for a breach of the peace on my watch I ended up in a little scrap.

Upon hearing of this my mother became concerned with my well being and insisted I stayed with her sister Viv and her husband.

Whether that’s true or just the intro to ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ isn’t important. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t know of the man like Jazzy Jeff and his light hearted contributions to the world of hip hop.

He’s been around for a few centuries short of an aeon and although he’s never quite topped the work he did with Bill Smith in terms of popularity, he’s kept his head above water with some fantastic scratch heavy collaborations with Slum Village, Talib Kweli, Little Brother and The Roots to name but a few.

Speaking from wonderfully rose tinted experience, he always knows how to bring the party and with the Futureboogie DJs sweetening the deal in the form a 90’s inspired rinse out, there’s no excuse. 

Bristol is his kingdom and he’s finally here. So whistle for a cab and get to Lakota.

[Preview] Daedelus- Live at Lakota Bristol (Published in Fear Of Fiction April 2012 Issue)

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you, I’ve lost the screenshot of the Facebook chat Daedelus and I once had.

As inconsequential as it may seem, that PNG file was as prized a possession as the massive yellow balloon I caught and spent three minutes deflating at Fatboy Slim’s final set at Bestival. 

I’ve been an enormous fan of the disco dandy for 7 solid years and have witnessed his amazing frenetic live shows countless times, each time blown away with his fresh approach to live performance. I’ve never had the opportunity to see his Archimedes light show until now. Rest assured I’ll be at the front flapping my hands like a remedial.

The visual array it provides is fantastic. Swiveling banks of mirrors, lasers and strobes make the perfect accompaniment to Daedelus’ own brand of high energy, on the fly, twisted bootlegs.

The man is all about the visuals. He performs using a homemade trigger pad angled toward the audience offering a glimpse of his complex techniques.

Standing 6 feet high dressed as an 1800’s dapper in a crushed velvet suit and waistcoat thrashing his arms with every MIDI trigger, both sweating and smiling profusely. One of the politest men you’ll ever meet and a master of making you feel as though your brain is melting.

Everyone should know what it feels like to have your senses assaulted by a damp victorian gentleman.

I believe I just wrote my epitaph.

[Review] Justice- Live at the o2 Academy Bristol (Published at Fearoffiction.com Feb 2012)

Over the past few hundred years the French have given us many things.

They provided us with a bafflingly large selection of foul smelling dairy products, aptly introduced words like abandon, quit and surrender into our language and even let Walt Disney gain a posthumous stranglehold on Europe.

As far as I’m concerned all of these things pale in comparison to the glorious gift they bestowed upon the world in 1996.

The release of Daft Punk’s first album Homework was a catalyst for a French dance music scene that was up until that point fairly insular. Their manager Pedro ‘Busy P’ Winter was the man who capitalised on the boom, and after managing everyone under the sun went on to form the now worldwide phenomenon that is Ed Banger records.

Ed Banger’s second release was the infamous Never Be Alone by a couple of Parisian remix 

competition winners calling themselves Justice.

And the rest, as they say, is your mother’s brother.

Considering the worldwide phenomenon that was their 2007 debut album ‘†’, Justice haven’t really been hogging the limelight of late and they’d be forgiven for misplacing their enthusiasm like we’d be excused for feigning ours. The sheer amount of makeshift, glow stick crucifixes on show at Bristol’s o2 Academy showed otherwise. Sporadic shouts of “Justice” reminded me of that horribly messy court case my uncle had to endure recently and when the sea of people below me started jumping and swaying I thought someone had slipped me a Mickey.

From the opening gambit of ‘Genesis’ you knew it was going to be big. The massive synth laden orchestra of it’s intro ringing out like a giant mechanised Godzilla was preparing to terrorise the room. After an almost mandatory hiatus of the drop a truly epic light display lit up a thousand beaming grins and the ground started shaking under the whim of two thousand ecstatic feet. 

Tracks like ‘Stress’ and Justice’s own remix of ‘D.A.N.C.E’ went off like a block of Camembert left in the sun, and the football chant accompaniment to ‘Phantom Pt. 2’s bass line was just glorious.

The music being a given, the highlight of the evening’s entertainment had to be watching  a rack of Marshall amps I scoffed about not being plugged in to anything suddenly light up to form a huge video display with loads and loads of pretty colours on it.

After orchestrating a final, wonderfully shouty chorus of “We are your friends…” as the summation of a twenty minute encore, the pompous facade finally crumbled and the leather clad pair set about shaking hands with their adoring crowd absolutely beaming and genuinely humbled.

It may not have been the biggest gig they’ve played but it had to be one of the warmest receptions,  

and although they’ve been off the radar a little as of late, anyone watching a show as monumentally impressive as that will have them at the forefront of their minds for some time.

Cheese, words, Euro Disney, Daft Punk and Justice.

Yeah, I reckon that just about covers it.

[Review] Burial- Kindred EP (Published in Now Then issue 48 Feb 2012)

I’d be quite happy if Four Tet rubbed off on me. For the purposes of inspiration of course. I’m not keen on sharing a bed with Kieran Hebden and his abnormally large head. I’d like to spend an evening taking his plug-ins. You know, bear a mutual brainchild. What I mean is he uses a lot of defunct analogue instruments and I’d like to go round to his and work really hard before backing up onto a floppy.

In 2009 William Bevan or, as he’s known to his mum, ‘Burial’ collaborated with Hebden on what I genuinely considered to be “the best tune I’ve ever heard”. Now don’t get me wrong, Burial is a right royal virtuoso as it is, but when he and Four Tet collaborated on ‘Moth’ something very special happened. Bevan’s trademark counterpoint of dusty clicks and wooshy noises were reigned in with the dance music staple of a 4/4 time signature. They say beauty is repetition and it’s the beautiful repetition of a beautifully repetitive hook that repeatedly makes me think that ‘Moth’ is beautiful.

Last year’s Street Halo was arguably Burial’s best yet due to its prevalent 4/4 theme and his new release tops it for the same reasons. The title track ‘Kindred’ is old school Burial fare - an enormous droning bass line, 2-step rhythm and a huge suspended vocal hook.

Second track ‘Loner’ is where things get interesting. A primitive Casio house beat and a huge rave inspired arpeggio sit atop Burial’s trademark crackles, snaps and pops, giving the track the feel of listening to a happy hardcore mix on a gramophone.

But my money is on ‘Ashtray Wasp’. The track actually starts off with a pitched down sample of the synth hook from 2007’s album track ‘Endorphin’ before a mystery female vocal clip uttering the words “Alright, bye” slices through the ambience. Bidding farewell to his previous style of production couldn’t be more apt. A swinging house beat, a floating fairground arpeggio, nods to AFX’s acid house twiddlings, 90s vocal stabs, and an outro who’s desperate screams of “FOUR TET!” are masked under low fidelity clicks, crumbling samples and demi-octaved field recordings.

400 words isn’t enough to go into as much depth as I would like. This release is exquisite. I’m not saying collaborating with Four Tet has made Burial a better musician. I just feel it made him appreciate the beauty of repetition and if you can repeatedly make something beautiful then I will dutifully pay for the opportunity to play something beautiful... on repeat.

[Review] Pinch- Fabriclive.61 (Published in Now Then Issue 46 Jan 2012)

I’ve never been to Fabric. It’s not like I didn’t want to or anything. Who wouldn’t want to stand on a dancefloor that vibrates the music through your bones? Your bones, for Pete’s sake! The closest I ever got to that were those lollipops that played the radio through your teeth.

I just never got around to it is all. I knew exactly what it sounded like in there though. I’ve been an advocate of the Fabriclive mix range since I first heard Jacques Lu Cont expertly weave together Fabriclive.09.

After that Adam Freeland beat the grey stuff out of my head with his heavy electro and breaks driven Fabriclive.16, Aim hugged me through every quiet night shift with Fabriclive.17, Evil Nine made me feel a bit funny in the trousers with Fabriclive.28 and Justice made me appreciate camp French disco with the very different and frankly brilliant Fabriclive.37, which was rejected in favour of Caspa & Rusko.

For a long time these mixes were a platform for carefully selected DJs to entertain you with their ideal night out. They were always fun and never took themselves as seriously as their sister ‘Fabric’ mixes - all apart from No. 23, which we don’t talk about because it doesn’t fit in with what I just said and I don’t want to look like an idiot.

It’s pretty hard to extract artistic merit from a varied selection of songs that come from a varied selection of musicians, unless of course they’re embarrassingly well mixed, or if the artist does what I like to call a ‘Kalkbrenner’ and just plays their own tracks for an hour and a half.

Neither of those things has happened here. Nor is it in the least bit fun. The tone of the release is dark and sparse, packed to the gills with a style of under-produced bass music that is somehow still popular. There’s even a bit of ‘wob’ in the form of ‘Blue Meanie’ by Distance, which sounds even more out of place on this mix than that particular brand of noise does within the nation’s collective psyche.

Having said all that, this is the only place you’ll be able to get a full three minutes of Boddika & Joy O’s ‘Swims’ for quite a while. Every cloud, and all that.

I’ve no doubt there are people out there who will thoroughly enjoy this mix. Unfortunately I just didn’t have enough ketamine on me to really get the most out of it.