Thursday 10 May 2012

Music Diary 2012, day 4

Today I received a package in the mail from Belgium: three review CDs from Brett at [sic] Magazine. Whoop! I got stuck in right away...

Kutin, Ivory (Valeot)
Well, this is very promising indeed. I put the first of the three CDs on the lounge stereo while I was cooking and immediately liked it. This rarely happens. Field recordings, static, warm slushings of synthy noise; heartbreaking melodies buried beneath digital detritus. Definite shades of Fennesz, which is a very good thing. It gets abstract and creepy towards the end, which had Holly looking at the speakers with concern. Some of the passages on the last couple of tracks sound like little metallic beetles are trying to fight their way out of the speakers and eat you. Yuck. Will definitely explore this one, loud, over the next few days. Excited to dip into the other two by Kingbastard and Ex Confusion, too. All three have lovely packaging.

SBTRKT, SBTRKT (Young Turks)
This has been my album of choice to blast in the car since I borrowed it from my local library a few weeks back. So, on it went again as I made the half-hour drive to rehearse with my band, Summon the Birds. The first half of SBTRKT is wall-to-wall melancholy-infused bangers; the second half sounds dated to my ears, so I normally skip back to the start once I reach track seven. There's a vocalist called Sampha whose voice kills me. The female vocalist isn't so good, but is still strong. I think when this came out last year I didn't pay much attention because the phrase 'dubstep' was waved at it. (I can't really get into all these new trendy genres. 'Chillwave'? Ugh.) I picked up the CD at the library because I liked the cover and seemed to recall reading a good review somewhere. 

From spinning these two albums today I recognised a simple truth: I like to listen to loud, pace-quickening music in the car, and reflective, atmospheric stuff at home. Predictable, but true.

No comments:

Post a Comment