Author: Matt Oliver

Album Review: Dntel / ‘Aimlessness’ (Pampa)

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★★★★☆

Aimlessness is a cunning tag that Jimmy Tamborello applies to his latest album. If that’s a set-up for the LA producer to lack purpose and direction, therein lies the sceptics’ spoiler alert, and the title also gives big clues as to letting his mind wander and playing out daydreams. As it happens his electronica does have a point and his visions are realistic. While tracks are rarely found pulling in the same direction, they always keep ears safe from harm in an environment mainly perched on child-like building blocks. Hope and joy on the bubbly chase “Jitters” shows no fears (though the Geotic mix shows a rare downside), and the confidence to step into the light is boosted by chillwave clubber “Still,” surf-rock hallucination “Retracer” and helter skelter swirl “Trudge.” How the titles mismatch to the sounds further adds to the headswim.

You can imagine Dntel’s laboratory-as-studio operated with a fine toothcomb making the intricate sound easy and the easy-sounding appealingly sensitive (“My Orphaned Son”). The changes aren’t drastic and like a dream you don’t remember upon awaking, it lacks a little long-lasting memory, but you know you’re happy with the outcome. In turn this means the album is not something you can lose yourself in, but has greater value as a quick pick-me-up or power down.

File under: The Postal Service, Figurine, Baths

Album Review: Deniz Kurtel / ‘The Way We Live’ (Wolf + Lamb)

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★★★★☆

The producer who developed the idea of music as guardian angel doesn’t ditch her sonic surveillance on her sophomore album. Not as clingy or up close and personal as her debut, Music Watching Over Me, Deniz Kurtel maximizes her right to be standoffish, with the introduction of Anti Pop Consortium-style hip-hop — the title track, “Right On” featuring Spearhead’s Michael Franti — increasing the pressure.

Within the ’80s inflections syndicating electro-pop and Detroit/Chicago layovers, “You Know It’s True” re-models two well-known pop fraudsters and “Thunder Clap” draws space fantasies in moonboots. There is expansion, yet the enigmatic grip Kurtel has over you continues, a skeletal hand that manages to be warm and pulpy when “Wake Me Up” shows human sincerity and “I Knew This Would Happen” brightens up. Kurtel’s string-pulling and wicked witchedness means she encourages tracks to spread their wings, but issues warnings that The Marcy All-Stars must report back to her or else.

The audio-visual element in which she also specializes in doesn’t make for much of an exhibition on paper, showcasing a canvas of shuffling, snapping darkness fleetingly illuminated by a mix of sleek and faltering neon through the blinds of the Marcy Hotel. Kurtel reiterates the skill of heightening the senses by taking away from them, where the starkness leaves the imagination to fill in the blanks. Super cool.
File under: Soul Clap, Gadi Mizrahi, Maya Jane Coles

Album Review: Tomas Barfod / ‘Salton Sea’ (Friends of Friends)

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★★★★☆

The Danish producer with credits for Get Physical and Kompakt builds deep electro house that always has something to offer and will surprise you as it goes. In nautical terms, Barfod catches an unexpected wave after a period of lapping at your feet, but is just as likely to subside back to calm in the twinkle of an eye and still keep the album’s thread going. There’s no musical journey maxim being cornered either, it’s the in and out of the tide that makes progress and with much in common.

Languid elfin pop “Broken Glass” finds solace far away from the dance floor with its kooky chord arrangements and differing made-to-fit sections, backed by “Till We Die” playing clam-shell percussion. Cosmic discoers “Came to Party” and “Python” reroute again, one airy and embracing, the other stern and guarded, both still keeping a solid fit. Then the mixture of pop leaning towards the left and direct to the dance floor comes with an intersection: both “Don’t Understand” and “November Skies” have a cunningly grand scheme about them from modest openings.

Sometimes it’s not the change in style, just a technique or effect that catches your ear, so for example, with “Aether,” it’s like lobbing a stone into still waters and seeing how the ripples pattern out. A fine sea shanty.
File under: Tahloula, WhoMadeWho, Filur

Album Review: Los Transatlanticos / ‘First Trip’ (BBE)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

★★☆☆☆

For an album dependent on fusion and crossing cultures, the maiden voyage of Los Transatlanticos lacks spark. Reggae/dub and Latin, regularly caught up in a calypso quarrel, hits a glass ceiling. Though an always lively funk carioca and a convergence that stops itself before getting too crowded, it becomes an experiment with unsurprising outcomes. Croatian Dean Bagar, a regular visitor to South America until he made a record with vinyl pen friend Pablo Gaviria puts you in the holiday mood with “Mi Sembrado” and “Donde Esta Maria” telling when the clubs are open and “Alone I Am” showing you a less hectic side to the scenery. Traditional sounds are given an electronic workover as Bagar lugs his melting pot down back streets, with added hip-hop attractions (“Tierra Y Sol” packs in as much as possible), tentative attempts at dubstep integration (“Desde Colombia,” “De Donde Vengo Yo”) and big-beat, beat-boxed road trips (“Te Miro”).

The inevitable drum ‘n’ bass shake-up is last on, a remix of LA 33’s “Funky Boogaloo.”.If you’re rushing to the departures gate, snapping up First Trip isn’t a bad idea, but it’s unlikely you’ll be spinning it once back home and a language barrier shouldn’t be held responsible either. The live performance with its instrumentalists, elements and cultures alignedmight provide more excitement.
File under: The Nextmen, Latin Dub Soundsystem, Sunlightsquare