VA - LateNightTales by Belle and Sebastian (Volume 2)

B&S's first contribution has now sadly fallen out of print; what better time, then, for these Scots to submit a whole new set of cross-genre finds? Another solid entry in this mix series.

"Their scene-straggling 2006 LateNightTales included pure pop, '60s psych, '70s rock, West Coast harmonies, beat groups, folk balladeering, punk, indie, girl groups, and bossanova; this new selection only delves deeper into their shared influences and inspirations, along with a subtle nod to digging for rare sampled beats, not perhaps a trait usually associated with B&S. Worldwise psychedelic breaks thread the mix together, with two tracks from Broadcast bookending a first half that includes late-'60s dreamers The Wonder Who? and Joe Pass, father of Ethio-jazz Mulatu Astatke, harpist Dorothy Ashby and the 21st-century beats of Gold Panda." - LateNightTales

THE CARETAKER - Patience (After Sebald)

This newest release on James Leyland Kirby's History Always Favours The Winners imprint has him once again donning his Caretaker guise, and these detourned piano pieces are a classical gas (or maybe more of a gauze, come to think of it—click here to sample this album's outtakes, the supplemental mini-album Extra Patience).

"Leyland Kirby's most recent effort, much like, but unique from, those released previously, exists as a faded daguerreotype of passing time and time passed. Commissioned as the score for Grant Gee's most recent film  [of the same name], it's an amorphous miasma of echoing antiquity, evoking a time prior to the advent of colour film as a crackling grey scale roll." - Exclaim!

"James Kirby's discography as The Caretaker is essentially variations on a theme, but you never quite know what you're going to get out of him. This time around, Kirby has chosen recordings of Franz Schubert works circa 1927 and repurposed them via his usual mix of gentle processing and decay, but here the lines are blurred more than ever between artifacts of age and purposeful manipulation." - Resident Advisor

VA - Big Band Present: Italo Funk Experience

Another excellent entry in Nascente's Experience series. Bene!

"Italian Funk Experience features lost soundtrack gems from cult soundtrack composers such as Piero Piccioni & Piero Umiliani, modal-jazz classics from Lee Konitz & Giovanni Tommaso, twisted Italian funk from the likes of Tony Esposito and super-rare pieces from the cult Italian library music label Rotary, many composed by Italian jazz-legend Amedeo Tommasi.

Big Bang is the production name of Simone Serritella, head honcho of the Italo-jazz re-release label Arision, and under his production name Big Bang, a celebrated jazz-dance producer and favourite of Gilles Peterson." - Demon Music Group

SANDRO PERRI - Impossible Spaces

So, we really like Sandro Perri around these parts.

His last full length, Tiny Mirrors, was our shop's fave record of 2007. And though it's not here on our website for reference, I believe the previous year's top record was the self-titled effort by Glissandro 70, a side project of Perri's alongside one Craig Dunsmuir...who kinda, sorta, umm...works here at Soundscapes.

If you still believe by this point that we're capable of any objectivity at all, then I would like to say this: not only do I predict that our 2011 staff poll will find Perri's latest once again on top of our year-end list, but I think he absolutely deserves the accolade...and should get the same praise elsewhere. That's because Impossible Spaces is more than just the best thing this local uber-talent has done (whether under his own name or his also-exceptional aquatic ambient guise, Polmo Polpo). It's an album that stacks up beautifully against anything released this year. It is, as a colleague of mine opined earlier, "a game changer."

But first, a little word about nepotism. No one likes it, am I right? Except that whether you're a CEO or a convenience store clerk, I'd wager we're all guilty of it at some point. Because whether it's landing someone a cushy new job or a jumbo Squishee for the price of a small, who doesn't love the feeling that comes with abusing power to favour one's friends? It's kind of innate—true objectivity just doesn't happen to be something we humans do all that well.

But, there's also a check against that kind of apparently unbridled favouritism. The truth is, that feeling of wanting to be the one to draw attention to our overlooked peers—to be deemed forward-thinking tastemakers and benevolent benefactors of a local scene—that good feeling is a transient one. It rapes and pillages and plunders and then quickly moves on. That's why so many artists (especially local ones) are built up and torn down so quickly. It's not about loving them, it's about loving the feeling that being the first to tell others about them brings us.

Familiarity and community alone does not breed loyalty. Loyalty requires more. In music, it ultimately asks that the local artist is capable of moving us in the same lasting and surprising ways that any other musician or group does. And that is what Sandro delivers to us, his very appreciative fans. He's one of a kind, baby.

Without a eye to any trend, Perri has very quietly amassed a discography of very human music. It makes sense that the first Polmo Polpo full-length was called The Science of Breath. Despite many changes in approach, his music has remained organic and instinctive in its movements. Like a creature growing and evolving before us, each new record has found ways to absorb and adjust past lessons into new patterns and expressions, each set both more efficient and more complex that what preceded it.

Consequently, Impossible Spaces is the greatest example yet of this career evolution. At seven songs, it is brief. And yet with several tracks reaching over seven minutes, nothing about the record is linear or overly direct. It contains immediate hooks (like the killer guitar bends of "Wolfman" or the gentle title mantra of "Changes"), but also is full of arrangements so subtly nuanced that they continue to be mysterious after dozens of listens. Perhaps most importantly, despite any number of touchstones (from Arthur Russell and The Sea and Cake to Van Morrison and Brian Eno), it sounds like absolutely no one else. Sure, if you're looking for it, you'll hear funk, blue-eyed soul, ambient soundscapes, folk-jazz, electronic, and psych-pop all cozying up together. But if you really listen, you'll hear an absurdly smart and humble musician following his own cues without shame or pride. And then you'll realize just how rare an experience that is.

Sandro Perri may come into our shop sometimes, and that's certainly endearing to us. But the reason we really love him—and why we'll continue to love him even if Impossible Spaces gets feted above and beyond our wildest hopes—is because he's the bloody best at what he does. He's the only guy who does what he does. And if you've ever needed a reason to check him out, it's this: this album is listen-to-it-for-the-rest-of-your-life good; it's Astral Weeks good.

And yes, we're biased. But for once, it doesn't matter.

ROLL THE DICE - In Dust

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Also, while I think to mention it, if you're up for listening to a new synth + piano release that I just really got into and think you might also like, this Swedish duo Roll The Dice has a new album called In Dust on the Leaf label that takes that whole kosmische/Cluster/early Kraftwerk/electronic krautrock/John Carpenter set of influences that has been the zeitgeist for a little while now and does something really refined with it (think Vladislav Delay, Moritz von Oswald or that Mokira record I was raving about a couple years back)—the production's really rich and flattering on this, the sequencing is solid, and to me it sounds bummed but blissed out at the same time.
 
Check it out if you've got a free hour (or less, of course, if it doesn't end up being your bag!) at some point:
http://www.self-titledmag.com/home/2011/09/05/free-association-stream-roll-the-dices-in-dust-album-and-read-their-track-by-track-commentary/

PRURIENT - Bermuda Drain

If you’ve read any article on Bermuda Drain, Prurient's new album, you’ll probably have read that Dominick Fernow’s approach for this record has been severely influenced by his time spent working with Cold Cave, especially on their latest release Cherish the Light Years. Let's just address that now—while yes, they do share similar qualities initially, the end products could not be more different from each other.

If you’re at all familiar with Prurient’s previous efforts, this one might throw you for a curve. While most of his records are very in tune with groups like Whitehouse or The Sodality, Bermuda Drain strays from Fernow’s power electronics roots and takes on a dark wave approach. If you’ve ever fancied yourself a fan of early Ministry or Black Celebration-era Depeche Mode, this album should strike a chord with you. There’s nothing pop about this. Musically, this album just piles the melancholy on more and more, until closing track "Sugar Cane Chapel." Fenrow has maintained the ferocity in his vocal approach for most of this record, but takes breaks from screaming and shouting to deliver spoken passages, sometimes barely above a whisper.

Industrial leanings remain, with a harsh wall sometimes washing over the melody. The songs themselves have been restricted to no longer than three or four minutes each, and the feeling of endlessness found on records like Pleasure Ground is gone. Everything just feels more focused. His lyrics, while still touching on sexuality and other taboo subjects, feel more thought out and poetic, and we might have his Mother to thank for that (no, really—she’s credited in the liner notes!).

Dominick Fernow is a king of multitasking. Besides performing as Prurient and with Cold Cave, he's a member of many other groups (Ash Pool, Vegas Marytrs, Vatican Shadow...), and also runs his own label and record store (Hospital Productions). You would think that by this point exhaustion would diminish the quality of his work, but thankfully it’s only getting better.

HANDSOME FURS - Sound Kapital

With the arrival of Sound Kapital, their third LP in five years, Montreal's Handsome Furs have refined and redefined their sound, proving once again that the duo (consisting of husband and wife Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry) can do no wrong. This record also has more riding on it than past efforts, as it's Dan Boeckner's first outing after the demise of his other band Wolf Parade, who in the past have always taken priority over the Furs (with 2008's At Mount Zoomer and 2010's Expo 86 both following quickly on the heels of previous Handsome Furs albums, 2007's Plague Park and 2009's Face Control).

If you trace the progress in their sound between their three albums, you'll hear a newfound sense of urgency on Sound Kapital that was there before, but just not as apparent. Gone are the slower guitar-driven numbers, replaced almost entirely by layers of keyboards and a driving beat that never lets up. The Furs have always had great lyrics, but the subject matter and images painted on this album have never been clearer or more poignant. Written while on a tour across Asia, each song tackles another issue head-on, from government censorship in countries like Myanmar to youths fighting oppression through music. Surprisingly, despite the heavy subject matter, the record's overall tone is quite hopeful. Clearly, with Sound Kapital, the pride of Montreal have created an album to make you dance and think.

PANDA BEAR - Tomboy

Over what has felt like a year (and actually nearly has been...), we've been receiving warnings, hints, teasers, and full-on singles off Tomboy. It's the kind of online hysteria and anticipation that's normally reserved for a Radiohead album (at least before that particular band caught on to the idea of sending out their press releases and albums within the same week). But instead, the record in question is the latest solo release from Noah Lennox, an artist who—despite membership in the increasingly beloved Animal Collective—bears a considerably smaller public profile.

The palpable excitement here acknowledges just how high the bar was set by his last effort, 2007's surprising Person Pitch. That record was a total shot in the dark. A heady intellectual collage of looping sounds and twelve-minute meandering epics, it still managed to deliver an immediate rush courtesy of a child's toy box worth of sugary harmonies and giddy charm. It’s a rare thing when an album is so obtuse and yet so quickly captivating as Person Pitch was. It really did change things, especially when you consider what happened after Animal Collective released Merriweather Post Pavillion in 2009.

Usually when artists reach this point, they do one of two things: stay firm and embrace this plateau, or retreat. Retreat is a strong word, but based on Tomboy, Lennox has little interest in staking a further claim to the high ground claimed by Person Pitch. Sure, the charming harmonies still swirl lugubriously in pools of syrupy reverb. Loosely related lyrics are still repeated in ever-turning trance-like incantations. Found sounds and beats still play under woolly blankets of synths and treated guitars. But the mood is decidedly darker this time around. There’s no ecstatic changing of the guard mid-song as on Person Pitch’s early highlight, "Take Pills"; no epic rhythm jam like "Bros" that ends in a sequence so golden and honeyed, you can practically feel the warmth of the sun on your face.

Instead, Lennox’s statements are shorter and more controlled. He may allow for moments that get lost in their own joy (the ascending "Afterburner" is a stunner), but overall—and for all of its excesses in terms of effects—the record feels concerned with not letting go too much. This approach does, however, morph into other types of pleasure. The title track is a heavy piece of work—commanding and concise, it grows in stature with each play. The beats in "Slow Motion" trip and bump beguilingly into a hiccuping vocal pattern that plays addictive tricks on the mind. And the wistful yearning of "Last Night at the Jetty" says a lot about the state of longing with its melodies (a good thing, considering you’re lucky if you can make out five of the words that he’s singing throughout).

Lennox has often stated in interviews that he’s most happy when his music is made quickly and intuitively—the more belaboured the effort, the worse the end result. Without Person Pitch preceding it, Tomboy is frankly not the sort of album that would be getting the attention it is. But even if it wilts a little in the glare of expectation, it remains an awfully beautiful and charming listen. And an honest one, at that.

JULIANNA BARWICK - The Magic Place

As far as album titles go, this is about as perfect and to the point as it gets. Following her debut Sanguine from a couple of years ago and last year’s Florine EP, Brooklyn’s Julianna Barwick has produced the most beguiling album of the year so far with The Magic Place.

With little more than her voice and a cathedral full of reverb, Barwick carefully builds up layer upon layer of mostly wordless vocals that reach high enough levels of intensity to rival the heights reached by that magnificent Pastor T.L. Barrett reissue from last year. Barwick’s transcendence, however, is much closer to European choral music traditions (think Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares without the brain-mulching dissonance) than it is to soul-cleansing American black gospel. She is the anti- (counter-? contra-?) Enya, vocal ambient music that can be as unnerving as it is overwhelming in its beauty. She is much closer aesthetically to Kevin Shields, who achieved a similar effect on My Bloody Valentine’s more repetitive pieces, such as "To Here Knows When" or on the feedback-driven "Glider". And way back in the '60s, David Crosby nailed down a blueprint for Barwick’s sound on "I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here" from his debut If Only I Could Remember My Name, perhaps his most moving piece, a spectral a capella fragment which, until now, has remained unrivalled.

Much of the magic of this album comes from the singer’s knowledge of when to let the reverberations ring out. She never gets Wagnerian with it, allowing the power of her music to come from timbre more than tumult. Compositionally speaking, her works are built around stacked melodies (her live performances are, no doubt, based on loops) rather than shifting harmonies. Most striking is "Keep Up the Good Work", both gorgeous and terrifying as it features her characteristic upper range with a highly vertigo-inducing vocal swoop. Its power is ineffable, something that does not feel created but, like a force of nature, like something that always was.

With only the barest occasional accompaniment on piano and other effects for colouration, Barwick continues to forge her original path, establishing herself as (literally) one of the most original voices on the scene right now.  

JAMES BLAKE - S/T

In the world of sports, there's a term for young players whose raw potential balances out their often naively bad decisions and one-dimensional play. It's known as having an "upside". A good upside is why a general manager will seemingly risk a team's future on a slight kid with no defensive skills but a devastatingly quick snapshot and an unflappable go-to deke. The bet is that with proper nurturing, the kid could become a superstar. But he could also remain a nifty shot and little else.

Right now, the blogosphere is seeing the upside to young Brit James Blake, and everyone wants in on the action. With good reason. Over the course of a few EPs and singles, Blake's approach to the cavernous, patiently shuddering world of dubstep has grown in leaps and bounds—each new release suggesting an impressive understanding of how to manipulate technology, while also displaying sound and daringly naked skills as a singer. After teasing with his confidently abridged slo-mo version of Feist's "Limit To Your Love" late last year, bets were on for his debut full-length to be this year's The xx—a chilled-out, dark and moody Anglo urban pop hybrid that reached listeners across the public spectrum.

For the most part, it is: numerous reviews have already and will continue to praise the record's confidently eloquent composure, dazzlingly gorgeous production, and overall refusal to bend to common notions of what a 'song' is. And yet, it's with that last point that I think the hype surrounding Blake must be taken soberly: for his sake as much as our own. 

The guy is a total wunderkind and his debut sounds fantastic. It pushes dubstep into intriguing and—for some of the young genre's purists—controversial places. But he’s not much of a songwriter.
Of the 11 tracks on James Blake, less than half have anything resembling a verse/chorus structure, often choosing to follow Blake’s rule of thumb: find a sentence or two that you like, and repeat it forever. Fine, you say? That's the point?

I suppose. After all, only last year Four Tet's excellent There Is Love In You featured numerous tracks very successfully based around cutting and splicing a single vocal hook. And from Jim O'Rourke to LCD Soundsystem to old Delta blues singers, plenty of artists have the played the game of getting a lot out of very few words. But when the words in question are a couplet as maudlin as "My brother and my sister don’t speak to me/but I don’t blame them", it takes a certain kind of patience to get through a song that repeats them nine times in a row. 

By focusing so much on vocals on his debut, Blake is opening himself to this sort of scrutiny. To his credit, he works very hard to assure the listener that it's the technique with which he delivers his minimal text that is most important. The song in question above, "I Never Learnt To Share", is introduced with an ever-building set of harmonies that would make most neo-soul singers weep with jealousy. "Lindisfarne I & II" pitch-shifts and roboticizes its vocals to a blissful binary oblivion—like a haunting ballad for the garbage-sorting robot from Wall-E. On "I Mind" he samples himself into alluring aural knots, wriggling his way free at the tightest moments with the ease of a magician. Again and again, Blake subjects his rather beautiful voice to a digital bruising, and these sounds convey emotion a hell of lot better than the words themselves. 

None of these quibbles can hide the fact that this record is quite unbelievably beautiful and inventive. I love it immensely. But still, like a 20-year-old hotshot winger with a lethal shot, it pays in the long run to analyze a rookie's shortcomings while acknowledging his natural talent. Perhaps a savvy 'vet' like Caribou holds an example of how an electronic artist can improve as a songwriter without ever becoming stagnant and bending fully to its rules. James Blake's upside is huge. He could be the Antony or Jeff Buckley of dubstep. But if he's not careful, he could just as easily be its James Blunt.

CUT COPY - Zonoscope

You know what's old news? The '80s are back. Heck, given what young bands like Smith Westerns are doing (along with numerous reunions from Polvo and Pavement to Archers Of Loaf), it's kind of even old news to say that the '90s are back. But while the '80s' once-ghettoized electronic drums and arpeggiated synths have become so completely reabsorbed into our musical culture as to feel permanently redeemed, not all touchstones of the Reagan era have been so evenly reinstated. Singer Dan Whitford of Melbourne, Australia natives Cut Copy is an embodiment of one of those touchstones: the impassioned white-guy yelp.

I’m talking Andy McCluskey of OMD on "If You Leave" styles—the cry of the hopelessly romantic Caucasian male, so completely devoid of grit, dirt or guts that it practically cleans your bathroom mirror as it sings. For the most part, the '80s revivalists of the aughts preferred to stay to the more deadpan, wailing or sneering sides of vocalization. After all, as long as this was the case, those with colder feet could still make a case for irony or punk iconoclasm.

Not Whitford. This guy’s purely populist pop pleas echo without a trace of a wink—he means it like Bono or Chris Martin mean it, except over music that neither of those artists are especially good at making (anyone remember Pop?). Fortunately for Whitford, he and his bandmates are very, very good at making that type of music. Which brings us to their third album, Zonoscope. Even though this record closes with a shimmering 15-minute throwdown ("Sun God") and features an instrumental interlude of twinkling beauty ("Strange Nostalgia For The Future"), most of it rides on the back of Whitford’s performance.

While highly danceable, his presence and vibrant emoting is never anywhere but front and centre. In other words, no matter what the songs are doing, if you don’t buy him, there’s no getting around it.
As such, I feel albums like this represents a key point in our culture revisiting the '80s. It’s clearly no longer about picking and choosing the coolest parts of the time period anymore. Zonoscope hones in on the most flagrant aspects of that decade’s dance-pop and revels in them with total abandon. Its production style and overall oomph may be a bit more modern, but its spirit is entirely borrowed. And what’s more, it’s a spirit that, for the most part, led to a following movement in music that was based on guitars, sloppiness and sarcasm (please see: grunge/4-track indie)—a wholesale renouncing of all of the traits that make Zonoscope such a buoyant and optimistic listen. So the question is: now that we’re back here, are we here to stay? Can the Cut Copys of the world co-exist with the next Sebadohs and Mudhoneys in our collections?

Only time is going to tell how cool it’ll be to sound like these guys in 2018, but for now, can I just say, "Yes!!"? Because all over this album—the opening one-two punch of "Need You Now" and "Take Me Over", the perfect final ascension of "Pharaohs & Pyramids", the almost indie-rock bliss of "Alisa"—are moments whose instant enjoyability belie the skill it takes to craft them. This is a great record, and in the same way that listening to OMD’s "So In Love" or Pet Shop Boys’ "Heart" should now leave you a little agog, these Aussies are making pop music that sounds terrific today, and, hopefully, classic in the future. 

DESTROYER - Kaputt

I was participating in a playful little internet discussion the other day that centered around a friend's query about when, if ever, there would come a day that he could listen to Al Stewart—the Scottish folkie turned highly literate purveyor of soft-rock—without apology. Based on the rapturous response to Dan Bejar's latest as Destroyer, a shameless tribute to smooth vibes called Kaputt, I'd say that time is now.

As with most things, this wave of appreciation began with a blast of irony. A cheeky DJ playing Hall & Oates' "Private Eyes" here; an episode of "Yacht Rock" there. But with that door open a crack, the last few years have seen a far more naked brand of affection for soft-rock: Michael MacDonald was asked by Grizzly Bear to track vocals for them, Bon Iver is heading up a group (Gayngs) whose sole mission in life is to bestow greater appreciation upon Godley and Creme's "Cry", and Gerry Rafferty's passing is met with more tearful postings of links to "Right Down The Line" than one would've ever anticipated.

So what gives? Did we all just have copies of Breakfast In America and Year Of The Cat hidden in our sock drawers, waiting for a moment like this? While listening to Kaputt, it's not hard to imagine just how different the reaction to it would've been in 1995. But now in 2011, there's a sense that we've gotten over the giggles and self-conscious embarrassment to simply return to the heart of the matter of any genre: are the songs any good? After all, isn't that why—no matter prevailing trends—it was never really gauche to love "I'm Not In Love"? 

By that measure, no amount of saxophone solos can muck up the great songs that fill Kaputt. More to the point, they quite enhance them. The entire record—both sonically and lyrically—walks a line between winking silliness and genuine pathos. As characters chase after parties and cocaine, deny themselves love, have spats with the press, sing songs for America, and just generally carry on in indulgent, self-destructive ways, they do so to a soundtrack that evokes a faded decadence—a false front of elegant composure that we all know hides a decaying structure behind. 

While not a concept record per se, first track "Chinatown" plays more like the opener to a suite than a single track, its extended instrumental breaks and concise, image-laden lyrics setting the scene beautifully. From there, Bejar's gentle but smirking croon proves the ideal narrator—soothing when it's required, telling a joke to ease the tension. He guides us through a rich, yet casual record of soft-pop that, aside from the New Order-ish turn of "Savage Night at the Opera", sits in the same sonic strike zone throughout. Even 11-minute closer "Bay of Pigs", a previously released piece of prog-pop, doesn't break the spell, its lengthy ambient passages capping the album perfectly.

Bejar is restless enough as an artist for one to surmise that Kaputt is more of a lark than anything else, but while often funny, it's no joke. This is easily one of the best records Destroyer has ever done and a boon to soft-rock champions everywhere. Keep it smoooooth, people.

ANIKA - S/T

Like another moody, no-frills, B&W-bedecked jewel case released two years back to little initial acclaim but slowly-grown consensus (I'm thinking of Actress' Hazyville, released back in late '08/early '09), Anika's debut stood out upon its release last month not only through its unique take on past styles (more on that later), but also in part due to its December date; the flipside of this was that that very timing put it out of contention for a spot on most listeners' and critics' best-of-year lists (this writer's included!).

Produced by Geoff Barrow of Portishead (credited as a full-band production by Beak>), Anika couldn't be a better candidate for co-release between Barrow's Invada Records and L.A.'s Stones Throw—the latter have spent the last five or so years occasionally spanning out from hip hop to stamp their imprimatur on disparate electronic, experimental pop, dance, and outsider/outlier acts like Gary Wilson, James Pants, Koushik, DāM-FunK and Bruce Haack (as well as countless compiled and podcasted minimal wave artists), and Anika's personality comes off as strong and steely as any of the above, an impressive feat considering the degree to which this record makes a point of showing its influences on its tattered/tailored sleeve, whether interpreting the songs of Skeeter Davis, Yoko Ono, Bob Dylan and Ray Davies or eerily echoing the early-'80s productions and spirit of such staunchly individual acts as The Flying Lizards, Vivien Goldman, ESG, The Slits and PiL.

SUSUMU YOKOTA - Kaleidoscope

Susumu Yokota may not be a household name, but in certain circles he is certainly a recognized benchmark. For over a decade, Yokota has been quietly making quiet music whose quality speaks much louder volumes. True, his catalogue also includes some exceptional house albums, but his main output has been focused on the kind of ambient electronic albums that anyone outside of Eno, Budd and Aphex Twin would kill to make one of. Records like Sakura, The Grinning Cat, The Boy and The Tree, and Laputa all feature Yokota's signature touches—merging patterns of traditional and ethnic music from around the world with gorgeous synth pads, gently loping rhythms and ear-catching found sounds. What has always saved him from merely making background music is the way he can subtly anchor his pieces with a kind of sonic narration. It's hard to explain in any way other than to say that his records go places—all while remaining quite still.

Kaleidoscope, while representing no real quantum shift in his approach, is another solid addition to Yokota's body of work. Like the best albums of this genre, it takes on dramatically different forms depending on the volume used by and the attentiveness of the listener. The music works in layers, and what appears translucent and hazy from a distance is sketched with surprising detail up close. The tortoise-paced evolution of colours on "Lily Scent Jealousy" is pulse-calming, but underneath voices calling for "The mothership..." hint at great unrest. 

Yokota's years of being a house producer also make a few appearances, albeit in atypical ways. "Pebble On The Verge Of Breaking" plays its title out, as Yokota uses the classic dance floor trick of a reverse whoosh after a long keyboard build up to signal the throbbing bass-heavy beat...except, in this case, the beat never comes. It plays with our Pavlovian sense of anticipation skillfully, keeping our senses riveted to what is essentially quite static music.

In the end, just another day in the workshop by a master craftsman. Beautiful stuff.

CLOUDLAND CANYON - Fin Eaves

One of the most fun things about the last half-decade or so of music has been listening to a brand new generation of players modernize the so-called shoegazer movement of the 1990s. Back in the day (you know, fifteen years ago or whatever), bands like Ride, Lush, Slowdive and the canonical My Bloody Valentine used effects and processing to make their guitars sound like anything but guitars. But they still came at their music from the mentality of a rock band—no matter how mutated, the basic language was still voice, guitars, bass, drums.

Now an even greater fluency with the computer and its possibilities has allowed solo artists and duos to create something akin to this music but in a slightly tweaked fashion. Here, the primary engine driving the music is the model perfected by another brand of '90s acts such as Underworld and Chemical Brothers—the IDM DJ duo. I don't mean this to be a particularly novel observation, but hearing the combination of swerving MBV-style chords and loop-based grooves of Fin Eaves track "Pinklike / Version" is one of those moments when you can really see the fruits of evolution. Like an equation in calculus, Cloudland Canyon are a problem wherein finding any 'x' variable in their chain of influence is just a matter of puzzling over it for a little while—obscured and refracted, sure, but it’s all there.

This duo pulls from more than the aforementioned template (there’s a heavy '60s psych undertone, for example), but it's most thrilling taken as a update of those early shoegazer albums—the ones made before bands like Ride or Lush allowed their rock instincts to push the gauzy FX aside and reveal themselves as the more conventional rock/pop bands they always kind of were. This record drifts everywhere and nowhere all at once—shards of pop songs and hooks float around in an amorphous jumble, and it's ultimately up to your ears to assemble it in a form that makes the most sense. In keeping with their model of 'engine', Cloudland Canyon really don't write songs as much as mobius strip suites that relive their brief lives over and over until they fade out. Which, more than anything, is actually somewhat conventional music in today's world...and it pleases me to no end that we've evolved to the point where this style of expression is as normal as picking up a guitar, setting up a drum kit and counting to four. 

SAM PREKOP - Old Punch Card

Admitting that it took me a long time to remember to review this album isn't exactly the best way to begin its endorsement—especially when I also admit that Sam Prekop's self-titled debut solo album is one of my favourite records of all time. I mean, I should be all over this, right?

My relative tardiness does say a lot about the latest from the Sea and Cake frontman, but it's not as bad as it might seem. Old Punch Card is a very different album to his first two solo works, trading their cooing jazzy pop/soul for dawn-of-the-computer electronic instrumentals. But it happens to pick up a dropped thread from earlier in his career. Originally, his first solo album was going be such a record—you can hear his early stabs at this material with the two final cuts on The Sea and Cake's 1997 EP, Two Gentlemen. Evidently, Prekop wasn't fully happy with where those songs initially led, but he did keep at it. Ten years later, he had a book of photography published (2007's Photographs) and stuck with it via an eight-song CD of untitled electronic instrumentals. The pieces were brief Boards of Canada-style beatscapes punctuated by primitive melody. It was a nice little bonus, but there was not much reason to believe that it warranted a wider release.

Old Punch Card arrives with similarly homespun hedged bets—the first 1000 copies have hand-painted artwork by Prekop himself, and there was little fanfare to herald its release. Even by his soft-spoken standards, it's something of a minor album. But that's kind of the beauty of the whole thing. By skirting anything approaching a big show, this album is going to end up in the intended hands: i.e. people who are familiar enough with the man and his pedigree to give his first full-on foray into electronic music a chance.

Does it match his careful buildup? While spare and open, Old Punch Card is certainly confident of its territory. Though it boasts nothing approaching a song, Prekop tours the array of sounds before him like a connoisseur at a wine and cheese tasting—every sip and nibble of bubbly binary is presented just so. And just as one would at such a culinary event, you have to allow yourself to indulge a bit to get the most out of it. But if you do, you'll quickly find that glitch 'A' really does pair nicely with zap 'B'. It all adds up in ways that kind of circumvent rational explanation. It just sounds pretty cool. 

From a man whose solo and full-band discography speaks volumes of quality—not to mention an exceptional career as a painter and photographer—a minor release of cool-sounding recreational electronic music is more than allowed. If anything, that's a huge part of what makes it the special little find it is.

WILLIAM ORBIT - Pieces In A Modern Style 2

The first volume of this series—whose wide release happened back in 2000—was an unexpected favourite of mine. Opinion often seemed split on whether it was an heir to Wendy Carlos or an entry-level muzak update of Hooked On Classics, but there was something about Orbit's unfussy electronic takes on classical pieces that really resonated with me (despite strong initial skepticism, I might add).

For starters, his love and reverence for the pieces was obvious—there was little attempt to add a throbbing techno pulse or glitchy hip hop break to the tracks. On some pieces, like the opener of Samuel Barber's "Adagio For Strings", it took a while to tell that it wasn't an orchestra. And even when he did go for a sound more obviously electro (as on Beethoven's "Triple Concerto"), the effect was tasteful and gorgeous in its own right. But that was Volume One...

This second time around, Orbit is much more comfortable with the idea of introducing elements from his own past as a storied house and dance producer (Madonna's Ray of Light, Blur's 13, the Strange Cargo series, etc.). Elgar's "Nimrod" bubbles and percolates like a pot on the edge of boil, driven forward by a gurgling bass line. Similarly, Grieg's "Peer Gynt" could easily be remixed to back a dark Kylie Minogue pop cut. Pieces such as Bach's "Arioso" and Faure's "Paradisum" hold truer to the original volume, but Orbit is definitely putting a heavier foot forward than previously. If Volume One was bringing modern technology into the past, Volume Two is much more about the album's titular ambition of bringing older pieces of music into a modern context.

If this sounds like something you'd hate, guess what? You probably will. I can't pretend for a second that what Orbit is doing here won't be seen by many as awful at best and sacrilege at worst. But again, despite the fact that I can see myself buying pants and drinking martinis to this album, I find myself inexplicably drawn to it. Perhaps it's because it so directly challenges the discrepancies between my pleasure centers and my taste centers (i.e. I like even though most of my 'critical' faculties tell me not to). Maybe it's because the more I listen to it, the better it gets. And besides, at its best, such as on Vaughan Williams' "Lark" or Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake", Orbit offers a unique opportunity to see well-established pieces in an entirely new light—not to mention one that isn't solely based on making Nutcracker excerpts sound 'funky' to try and hawk cheesy Christmas gifts. Once again, Orbit dances on a knife's edge and manages to come out quite unscathed. Well played.

ACTRESS - Splazsh / RENE HELL - Porcelain Opera

While it may not appear to be the case at first glance, there are enough affinities between these discs to warrant a joint writeup, and not just because they share a release week (although that certainly helps). 

While these two young men's soundworlds are both singular enough to be miles apart (and draw from their own mongrel mixes of entirely different subgenres), Actress (a.k.a. Darren Cunningham) and Rene Hell (a.k.a. Jeff Witscher) are both releasing their highest-profile full-lengths to date (for the highly respected Honest Jon's and Type labels, respectively) after years of underground acclaim in each of their domains (post-dubstep, abstract tech-house-inspired, what-u-call-it? U.K. bass music for Cunningham; ambient drone, harsh noise, power electronics, U.S. post-hardcore and, as Rene Hell, analog-synth industrial/prog/kosmische for Witscher).

While Hell's been much more pseudonym-happy than Actress (having also gone by the names Impregnable, Marble Sky, Secret Abuse and Abelar Scout, among others), both these artists have plenty of experience going it alone, not only through making their music solo, but also by releasing much of it on smaller labels that they each run (Werk Discs vs. Agents Of Chaos/Callow God), proof that Cunningham and Witscher both know how to skillfully produce tracks on/of their own, as well as how to lend their releases and identities the sort of mystique that's increasingly crucial to getting heard amidst the din of the independent music marketplace.

Each a unique, hermetic and disorienting sound experience unto itself, Splazsh and Porcelain Opera both bear the mark of years of hard work paying off, yet are immersive enough listens to render all this backstory moot, making for two of this writer's favourite electronic releases of the year thus far.

HOLY FUCK - Latin

I love swearing. Call it juvenile, call it reactionary, call it simplistic, but there's a joy, silliness, and release that comes from a good cuss word that can't be found anywhere else. And yet, despite this cozy relationship with blue words, I've had little room in my heart up until now for Holy Fuck. The blunt obviousness of the name could actually shoulder some of the blame, but that hasn't stopped me from loving Fucked Up. Nay, the real issue has been a search for the resonant core to the band's music. This Canuck quartet come complete with an enviable premise in tow—an analogue/real time take on electronic music—and in a live setting, the success of their hybrid is clear. It's loud, relentlessly groovy and quivering with creative and kinetic energy. But the same in-your-face-ness of their live sound always came off a little ham-fisted on album. After the admittedly strong, sweaty first impression, there was little in the way of hooks or memorable moments to bring you back.

Latin isn't a complete reinvention of Holy Fuck's sound—previous album LP's first single "Lovely Allen" was an excellent example of how well this band can combine chaos, rhythm and a tune—but it does take the foot off the gas just long enough in key places to allow the band to set up stronger moods, melodies and pacing. By allowing themselves a moment or two more to breathe in and reflect, suddenly the bursts of energy and noise have so much further to go when they appear. It's a tough thing to explain farther than that (and hey, maybe I'm just warming up to them myself), but everything about Latin is sharper, smarter, and more tastefully presented than anything they have done before. That's not to say that this is a conventional record—it's just an example of a great live band coming closer and closer to making a great record as well. There are still higher peaks for Holy Fuck to climb, but this is their tallest summit yet.

THE ALPS - Le Voyage

For most, a perfect summer album means bringing the party—dance jams to get you hot and sweaty. I don’t know about you, but I’m already hot and sweaty. I’m looking for something like the cool breeze that hits you just as you’re reclining in the garden with a little sundowner. Le Voyage hits the spot perfectly, with gauzy soft-psych streaming over everything and letting the mind relax and bliss out completely.

Steering clear of the claustrophobic reverb flood of Animal Collective and the like, Alps paint their psychic landscapes the old-fashioned way: shimmering twelve-strings, cymbals so airy they must be transparent, and the old stand-by tambura—'70s secret code that things are about to get trippy. When things do get electronic, things don’t stray far from that vintage palette—gurgling analog synths, tape echo, and distinctly French-sounding found-sound collage, with plenty of room left for your own imagination as you let your head float up into the ether.