Author: Matt Oliver

Album Review: James Holden / ‘The Inheritors’ (Border Community)

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James Holden The Inheritors

★★★★☆

Engineering with a fine tooth comb +/- just going with the flow = the difference between James Holden’s genius and abstract randomising. Intensely challenging and testing your survival instincts, getting the dancefloor moving may pose a problem in places as eyes and ears are likely to become transfixed by the spectacle rather than the end product of making logic out of the illogical, proving that the Idiots didn’t win after all, and having the scientific compete with ground level complexity.

Built with a coarse bustle that ranks overlaps over precision to the millimetre, the rawness of the startling “Lump” is reconfigured on the toying electro phase “Renata”, sharpening the knife edge with a stadium-sized churn of synaesthesia that with the knuckle-whitening title track, shares the nearest vibe of a sensory takeover. Holden’s self-constructed machinery lays out a set of logically organised triggers to feed snap decisions/intuition as to whether to go left or right. Constructed so light seeps through the gaps in blocky brickworks, it’s a hybrid of futurism using primeval trappings to both uplift with a near prog-rock momentum and drudge as a labouring, tools-downing dirge.

Anointing himself king of the wild frontier on the clan convoy “The Caterpillar’s Intervention,” of unusually easygoing, accessible analogue, Holden looks at the sky being the limit with highs from which there must be a comedown (“Blackpool Late Eighties” decorating an epic with fated consequences), the denseness grounding you as it scrabbles to find beauty in chaos.

File under: Boards of Canada, Nathan Fake, Amon Tobin

Compilation Review: ‘Late Night Tales – Röyksopp’ (Late Night Tales)

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Late Night Tales Royksopp

★★★★☆

Though everyone who contributes to the Late Night Tales series understands the vibe that is required of them, Röyksopp dim the lights just a little bit further. Blowing the dust off love song curios and synthesized outpourings kept in storage, the Norwegians scan the AM band for companionship through nomadic small hours. Marginally landing on the side of sunkissed as opposed to the fireside, both locales have a dated futurism or zest to them, your preferred room temperature comparing and contrasting Vangelis and Richard Schneider, Jr. Putting new wavers, including Röyksopp’s own cover of Depeche Mode, and R&B smoothies such as Byrne & Barnes on ice while folk and bluegrassers croon and weep ‘til dawn and soft rockers strum patiently in the corner, it’s a beautifully executed, paced and poised collection to get wrapped up in, as tender as it is kitsch.

The cool gained and luxury projected is done out of what sounds, not irrationally, unfashionable; in parts, it achieves a Homer Simpson description of approaching ‘wuss rock.’ However, it’ll open ears to back catalogs — another LNT rule of thumb — and makes tracks such as Tuxedomoon’s “In A Manner of Speaking” and Thomas Dolby’s “Budapest by Blimp” the center of your wooing with well-intentioned irony atop of genuine endearment. Acker Bilk’s “Stranger on the Shore” is romancing done the old-fashioned, gentlemanly way, showing that a good heart flutterer will go on and on.

File under: Prelude, John Martyn, Johann Johannsson, Popol Vuh

Album Review: Bomb the Bass / ‘In the Sun’ (O’Solo)

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Bomb the Bass In the Sun

★★★☆☆

“Beat Dis,” “Megablast,” “Bug Powder Dust” – Bomb the Bass’ finest moments now seem a lifetime ago, long substituted for mild electronica and water-treading beats in an unofficial mellowing with old age. Producer Tim Simenon and vocalist Paul Conboy are now set on an enigmatic, dub-laden, Balearics-targeting agenda, emerging through misty panoramas with heads in the clouds and dancing feet directed by a sometime indie-fied swagger. Except that it’s not particularly a unique attempt at a headswim, and only enigmatic if you make that your criteria for when lyrics are made up of wails, sighs and fogged wisdom.

Decent as a late in the day supplement, you may throw this on because you’re uneasy with silence; you don’t feel the need to interact with it because it’s just there, paddling along, offering a kind of detached, no frills companionship. Despite “All Alone” wanting to rebel, it means no harm, as “Just This Universe?” reflects while perched on a seawall and Conboy works in an airy-to-mumbling vocal with an Ian Brown-like dose of premium precociousness. Riding post-surf vapour on “Time Falls Apart” looks to hold down this summer’s after parties when joined by a babble of horn players, and “Where Better,” a mix of sub-psych drifting and Jim Noir all-is-rosy lyricism, has a steadying whimsy about it, to make you inch towards the pair just a little closer. Proficient, without great innovation.

File under: Seelenluft, Idjut Boys, Phantogram

Album Review: Scrimshire / ‘Bight’ (Wah Wah 45s)

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Scrimshire Bight Wah Wah 45s

★★★★☆

Not quite a spicy melting pot, not quite a slow cooker, Adam Scrimshire’s third LP is bound by the open air. A diarist to a day of road trips, campfire closures, a spot of impromptu partying, and facing forks in the road, his is a free spirit that enjoys taking and taking on a little piece of everything.

The singer-songwriter nudges the cusp of coastally-placed comfort, after nature’s course has lead him to louder climes. Indie pop and trip hop, put into down-looking-up and happy to be jaded categories, would appear to be at Scrimshire’s analogue/organic base, as folk strummings that lead to a hazy, surf’s down air and imagining post-dubstep from afar (“Convergent,” “Siren”) branch out yet stay supportive. It’s here where the album, close-knit in its creations, evolves out of sight, writing out a checklist of places to see and things to do, mixing up male and female vox, linking impassioned performance and above-a-whisper insights.

On Scrimshire travels, a touch of blue grass house on “Corporeal” giving the idea of a travelling band, also telling of the live element his convoy effect. Coming to rest at the cinematic and the ambient though always seems to be the album’s most gratifyingly natural path. Of long and winding wind-beaten roads, “No More” makes a case for audiovisual assignment, and “Kindle a Fire” makes as much sense as an intermission of glowing embers. Pack your bindle and press play.

File under: Morcheeba, Hidden Orchestra, Skeletons