IRM Gainsbourg and Beck

So that this blog doesn't get pigeonholed as exclusive to the remotely unlistennable and inaccesible, I'll review the new Chalotte Gainbourg album IRM here. Sure it's a pop record but it is a damn fine pop record and I'm confident that many music editorials will be scrambling to include it on their year end lists. After hearing the title track I was a bit confused, sure it was good, an understated hommage to Broadcast perhaps, I was never sold on Beck's musiciaship, he existed outside the relm of my contemporary interests, but here with Gainsbourg he shines. Her voice is unexceptional, but it works well over these fourteen varied tracks, of which almost every one is a fascinating pop-diamond. The listenability of this record is unsurpassed, remaining sleekly approachable while maintaining that euro-chic strangeness, especially on songs like 'Heaven Can Wait' or 'Grenwich Mean Time'. Though I don't own any of his records I'm convinced of Beck's experience here as he takes risks with Gainsbourg I think he would avoid on his own albums, somehow pulling off things like the T-Rex-esque track 'Dandelion'.

A good year for Charlotte Gainsbourg! Let's hope she doesn't become a Scientologist.

IRM > Antichrist.

Xela -- Frosty Mornings and Summer Nights

This is a nice surprise, after another Internet music blog described Xela as an ambient/drone group, I found on first listen that they are in fact, at least on this album, producing very innovative, understated and even "chill" IDM or Braindance, or whatever you want to call that genre of electronica that is nearly impossible to dance to. Sure I would classify it as ambient but not in a way that might induce napping and certainly not in a new-age type of way. BoC is the group that comes to mind when I listen to this though the Xela approach is not as rustic, a tad more polished, faster, quicker beats, more conducive to a gentle head bop. The kind of music that could only have come out of the U.K. The samples are not intrusive, nor are they cutting edge, I believe IDM has passed that stage of novelty, just a very organic sounding album and dare I say it again, a very "chill" sound. I'm excited to explore their other efforts.

In A Beautiful PLace Out In The Country -- Boards of Canada album review

This is a four track Ep released almost ten years ago, I don't expect anyone will mind if I review it for typing practice. Coming off the heels of Music Has The Right To Children; arguably the masterpiece of their catalogue thus far, this Ep exemplifies everything that BoC fans have come to love about the Scottish duo. Simplistic soundscapes with minimal rhythms or non-rhythms, tracks which swell behind slowed beats, always near by are the eerie traits of being lost in some impenetrable forest. Unlike their Warp label counterparts BoC build comparatively straightforward compositions, usually introducing and retiring their various sounds in an orderly and comprehensive fashion. "Amo Bishop Roden" works in this linear vein, the background notes glint with unwavering consistency while twisted organ sounds are applied and beats sprout up every few bars then rearrange themselves. Overall I find that as with most of their better efforts (Music Has The Right.. and Geogaardi), BoC provide a more focused approach to the IDM genre on this Ep. More fulfilling than R.D. James' post-Aphex Acid/house work and less accosting than artists like Venetian Snares. See the Trans Canada Highway Ep for contemporary update of their sound.

Nudge -- As Good As Gone -- album review

How to summarize the sounds of this album in words? Though less inclined listeners might cast it off after a few minutes as being repetitious or uneventful, others might conversely call it epic in scope. Songs layered with double instruments and monkish, vocal chants, creeping in with pristine textures. At times, like on "Two Hands" As Good As Gone drifts towards a type of uninspired jazz-funk if it were not for the doodling of psychedelically tuned guitars. The drums often resemble a perfectness from early electronica on songs like "Auriolac" and the entire album moving quite nicely into one beautiful and incoherent organism. A kind of experimental pop that never exploits either element to the album's detriment, I thought of the band Landing as I was first listening to this only because I feel they've been massively one-upped, fans of the newer Oneida stuff will like it I think, also enthusiasts of more laconic-minded groups like Om and to a lesser extent Nadja, the last two tracks: "Burns Blue" and "Dawn Comes Light" point towards the greatness of this band.