Author: Matt Oliver

Album Review: Oscar Mulero / ‘Black Propaganda’ (Warm Up)

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★★★★☆

One year after releasing Grey Fades to Green, Oscar Mulero has been wronged: Black Propaganda is his revenge manifesto, its titles reading like a press release promising the threat of a hostile takeover. Bookended by a barricade of atmospheric anxiety, the timebomb ticking before monitoring the movements of the virus it has inseminated the album with, the Spaniard’s spine-chilling, coccyx-bruising minimal techno sounds scratchily hollowed out, all while moving to a wrecking ball’s swing, percussion pinging around warehouses like ball bearings fired by a shoot-to-kill paintballer.

So it’s an ugly scenario. Tensions are high, the air is thick with dissent, whispers become amplified and what were once scuttles barge out of nooks and crannies. “Disinformation” and “To Convince for the Untruth extend the proactive mission statement with booming assaults, cocking the jackhammers harder and expressing caged rage with the venom of a headbanging carnivore. “Intentionally False” downsizes, or rather evens out, with a funky, robotised hisser that keeps the overriding spite close like an enemy, and in an unofficial game of bad cop badder cop, “False Statements” is bracing, punishing, classic fixed-focus interrogation.

Its thrills lying in cracking white knuckles, Black Propaganda is as unfriendly a three quarters of an hour as you could wish for. But it’s great quality, and that’s no lie.
File under: Anstam, Trolley Route, Surgeon

Compilation Review: ‘Late Night Tales presents Music for Pleasure’ (Late Night Tales)

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★★★☆☆

The Late Night Tales series regularly pays homage to the long forgotten, the previously thought lost, the criminally overlooked and most key to the concept, and what’s personal to the selector in charge. With Tom Findlay of Groove Armada seemingly suffering from a midlife crisis longing for ’70s/’80s standards in songwriting and campaigning for the bringing back of AM radio, this could make Father’s Day gift buying a piece of cake.

On Music for Pleasure, we’re not talking dust-crippled obscurities, mash-ups, B-sides or alternative takes. Just recognizable (some might say overplayed) blue-eyed, red-blooded pop-soul originals from Robert Palmer, Michael McDonald, 10CC and Gerry Rafferty, as Late Night Tales takes on the guise of a Desert Island Discs-style selection just as likely to be referenced in Family Guy as they are held dear. Fascinating as to the inner workings of a dance music producer’s mind (or should that be how bold they are as to owning up to dirty little secrets in their record collection, Findlay revisiting mixtape protocol that he probably hopes will get him laid), the franchise has either lost the plot or broadened its appeal as it aims for the open, middle of the road (you can tell there’s a bit of satire going on with its promises of “Yacht Rock!” on the sleeve). Joking aside, a neat compilation featuring big stars and a few names to do some research on.
File under: Hall & Oates, The Doobie Brothers, Steve Miller Band

Album Review: Ryat / ‘Totem’ (Brainfeeder)

Matt Oliver 1 Comment

★★★★☆

Straight out the gate, Christina Ryat is sizing up Björk’s crown. There’s no getting away from it, a fractured voice from a creature blossoming from electronic fissions and bugged collages trivialising the need for straight lines to match neatly, exhaling a kinked beauty that twists round awkward sonic oblongs. Buying into the Brainfeeder ethos (“Howl”) and helping widen its margins, the free-spirited vocal style can be intimidating and diva-ish (which should have other alt producers queuing round the block to work with her), but curiosity and the guessing as to what’s coming next overtakes feeling threatened by her.

The angelically imperfect tones can only survive against a backdrop of pick-up-and-play production that makes the album performance art in love with the challenge of poking and goading your headphones. As with most stockpiled compositions of this kind, amongst the rubble caused by the bucking “Seahorse”, compassion and understanding is a hidden ally, advanced upon by fast outbreaks of ideas tripping over one another (“Object Mob”).

Ryat makes a mockery of any maverick evaluation in that she makes you feel comfortable in the unconventional, despite lacking user-friendliness that should send you cross-eared. You could level many Scandinavian-bred clichés and comparisons against Ryat, except for when you realise she is the master (or mistress) of her own destiny.
File under: Björk, Aerea Negrot, Barbara Panther

Compilation Review: ‘This Ain’t Chicago – The Underground Sound of UK House & Acid’ (Strut)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

★★★★☆

Chicago remains a mecca for compilation inspiration, so it’s good for the game when you have Richard Sen of Bronx Dogs talking us through a UK perspective from ’87 to ’91 rather than rehashing the same old classics. In some cases imitation is the sincerest form of flattery — the old stereotype of the United Kingdom pinching a lot of music’s best ideas survives thanks to Baby Ford’s “Crashing” and Julie Stapleton’s “Where’s the Love Gone” — and it’s noticeable more than once how much smoother the source is, compared to the chunkier transatlantic translations and more pointed form of jacking under drum machine rule while using raw materials. (Though Andrew Weatherall’s mix of Sly and Lovechild flies effortlessly with the best of them.)

Sen also brings to light producers finding their feet, featuring future UK Garage stars Julian Jonah and Mark Ryder, and those that would make chart breakthroughs in Bizarre Inc. and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Paul Rutherford, (whose “Get Real” shows how house caught on, as it was produced by pop smoothies ABC). Of the best and most distinctive British sounds sparking up, seek out Rio Rhythm Band’s cheery “Cuba Jakkin’,” Playtime Toons’ Calypso harmony “Shaker Song,” Return of the Living Acid’s vicious “Twin Tub” and Ability 2’s roughneck bliss “Pressure Dub” for an educational account of the Windy City.
File under: Man With No Name, Mr. Fingers, Jamie Principle