Reviews

Album Review: Timo Maas / ‘Lifer’ (Rockets & Ponies)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

Timo-Maas-Lifer

★★★★☆

A real mish-mash third time up from Timo Maas, ploughing what could be termed a dance-punk route that finds thrills in hacking into computers on the run, while including 2011’s Brian Molko collaboration “College ‘84,” reasonable hip-hop outing “Grown Up” with Mikill Pane, and crystal-tipped house wandering star “Tantra.” After a ponderous, Asian-pinned opening that doesn’t really set the tone other than being one divergent strand amongst many, it’s the sub-goth quiet storms involving road-trippers Katie Cruel and James Lavelle that may leave you hanging, compounded by the twiddles of “Abundance” aiming for edge of the seat but not giving itself time to finish the job. The rocky roads travelled on “Scope” claw back the balance, providing a past-midnight awakening through long and stirring synth rolls.

At its most energetic, “Kick 1 Kick 2” makes the most of being given the freedom to rupture the earth with an ear-splitting techno boom and pound, but the spark goes missing elsewhere. “Train in my Kitchen,” with pots and pans clattering to beefed up punk-funk bass, doesn’t go anywhere, and “Cash Johnny” shows similar solidity in abrasions wanting the straight and narrow rather than the adventurous. Some good moments, some average moments and some moments that you’ve either heard before or won’t remember again, never has that distinction between the DJ and the artist, and wanting to grasp electronic music’s bigger picture, been truer.

File under: Mutant Clan, Santos, Seelenluft

Album Review: Black Jazz Consortium / ‘Codes and Metaphors’ (Soul People)

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Black Jazz Consortium Codes and Metaphors

★★★★☆

At coffee table level it keeps you company during your day-to-day. At tantric level your aura gets a gentle but thorough workout, and at tightly packed/cheek to cheek dance floor level, it’s a show of love occupying its own plain of grooving. Intense out of a conversely subtle framework shaping spirituality — one wispy synth line or string quiver reappearing in the distance makes all the difference — the profound techno elevation of Fred Peterkin lifts you just off the floor, but leaves enough floating room to be felt. See “Even Greater,” doing deep house with shades and tones taking you away before you know it.

Amidst burbling keys, horizontal loosening and jazz flecks played with intuition knowing where and when to fill space and nudge situations along, is machinery keeping strict time. The likes of “Melody Off Key” and “Tokyo Electric” work things out to a tizz of whirring technology, that on balance is less pure than BJC’s chilled agenda, but in its own way completes Peterkin’s picture, providing the transport to faraway oases.

The inevitable Ursula Rucker-ized monologue of “Be An Not Know” is a sound-off you’re not really gonna take onboard, and is an easy timeout for Peterkin to take in an otherwise grand design, guiding with concealed influence. “Love Is” repeats like a subliminal plant, and “Your Love” creates twilight sensuality for when the spotlight frames a dance floor for two.

File under: DJ Qu, Levon Vincent, Jus-Ed

Album Review: Letherette / ‘Letherette’ (Ninja Tune)

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Letherette Ninja Tune

★★★★☆

Athletic electro funk pogo-ers Andy Harber and Richard Roberts pull up a neon-coloured legwarmer with utterly groovy avant guardianship high-fiving the right side of plastic. Wondrously-tipped and making deceptive its united variations in tempo, it’s as if Letherette have made their way out the other side of a chillwave fog and sound thrilled at new discoveries seen in sharp focus.

Putting boogie in the beats scene and swapping its dark glasses for oversized star-shaped specs, the cool vibrates from kitsch touches and Gallic nods connecting the boldly retro and forward-thinking. Doing Justice on “D&T” with its shaggy guitar solo, nu-disco jitterbug “Restless” with Letherette hyping their stock drowsy stabs, and glamorous disco-glitch “Cold Clam” treading water to get to the object of its affection, turn the dance floor into one big post-gym, locker room frolic. Just as good a head-nodder, “I Always Wanted You Back” is a soaring hip-hop hug paving streets with gold; given the overriding energy, there’s no harm in taking a reflective breather and wringing out the sweatband now and again.

When the album gets its head down, “Gas Stations and Restaurants” is a big drop-off in vibrancy; a muggy soul comedown that typically slickens and perks up. The detours are maturely landscaped, still keeping the pervading glisten aglow, even if “Hard Martha” and “Say the Sun” sound comparatively down and out of breath on one of the year’s freshest sounding albums.

File under: Justice, Burns, Daft Punk

Compilation Review: ‘Aquasky presents Bring The Ruckus’ (Passenger)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

lummox layout final 1 .eps

★★★☆☆

Bass — a twin stroke turbo of skidding past your ears and shuffling your vital organs. Booty-hunting ragga — brought in to hype the party until the cops shut it down. And dusty dub — sent bouncing into a saw-toothed spotlight. Even if you think it’s a 19-track statement featuring a lot of familiar sounds, faces and samples — as big a rush as Bring the Ruckus provides, there’s no denying some same old stories — it seems to be filling a nice gap between EDM and bro-step through its big dipper of BPMs. See The Autobots & Dead Audio joining forces to get hands raised, and MadRush’s “Get Ya Vs Up” creating an elbow-skinning sea of two-fingered salutes.

Hectic yet schooling some of dubstep’s in-yer-face projectiles when the likes of RadioKillaz add the rave string to the bow, breaks shouldn’t start marketing itself as some intermediary third wheel. EDM’s sap and smiley simplistics aren’t up for discussion either. Rennie Pilgrem’s fireball “One By One” heads a pack constantly breaking the back of wack parties and revelling as the energy drink-mainlining renegade, with 601’s “Strobelight” looking for the nearest china shop to clatter into. Aquasky remind everyone of breaks’ energy levels that are never found dropping to show it won’t get left behind in the bass trends race. That title repels what others throw at it, creating some fearsome bottom end monsters as retaliation.

File under: Far Too Loud, Black & Blunt, Breakfastaz