Music Journal #009

Numbers are one of the most prominent labels to emerge from the UK over recent years, let alone just Scotland. In contrast to the noise they've made, their artist Deadboy has remained relatively quiet - he hadn't released any original material for two years prior to the Blaquewerk EP, a lengthy amount of time in this scene and climate. A common trait among Deadboy's work is the emotional trace left in every track - something that makes his edit of Drake's Fireworks shine for me personally. Thankfully Deadboy continues to leave this calling card among the tracks on the new release. The first song, On Your Mind, utilises his own pitched vocals, echoing something akin to the world of Blade Runner with is dimly-toned yet very 80s synths. Geek'd Up comes across as a bit more straightforward with layers building into a dancefloor-ready breakdown. Black Reign is a more atmospheric, pulsating rhythm that expresses more ideas then the previous tracks if not with as skilled execution. The final track, Nova, seems to go against the mood set by the first three tracks somewhat, opening with a jungle break that hits much harder than everything else. Blaquewerk ensures that Deadboy is still well worth keeping an ear on.

Mohammad are a Greek trio who use a combination of cello and oscillators among other tools to devastating effect on the drone release Som Sakrifis, which makes for an extremely fitting and impressive debut on experimental electronic label PAN. Sakrifis invokes the inevitable dread of rituals under night sky, emphasised by the monk-like chants that dress the latter parts of the track. The structure of Sakrifis tells a story - it isn't just about a mood, or a feeling, but how they develop, with different acts and chapters. Lapli Tero enshrouds with cloud and smoke, and as a listener you lose yourself within the darkness. Feeling your way through things, forwards and onwards, stopping to gather yourself after each step brings new developments. Liberig Min conjures feelings of mournful liberation, like that one look back as you leave home in a moment that lasts lifetimes. A false start, walking artificial intent then feeling the gravity and reality of the situation wash over you. For good or for ill, the life you lived in the place you knew plays in your head and fades into the present moment. You stop, catching breath. Then you take that last look behind you and everything you knew is no longer in sight.

A Malian guitarist and an Israeli pianist come together as The Touré-Raichel Collective, The Tel-Aviv Session being a fruit of their works. The West-African guitar style is the album's stem that ties various influences together, opening with the ambling, wistful Azawade. By the third track, Experience, the pace has jumped into a frantic jam where jazz piano takes the lead and vocals move into the spotlight on the fourth track. Hawa explores the blues where the piano is given room to breathe and African guitar music meets Muddy Waters. As the album progresses, more areas are explored such as Irish folk, classical and thankfully some more of that beautiful jazz. On the penultimate track, the lead vocals take leafs from Arabic music and Alem becomes a fitting ode to world music rounding off the loveliest of records.

For fans of singer-songwriter music and for the world that exists in dubstep's wake, James Blake is a consistently present figure that converts being inspired into something inspiring. On his sophomore LP Overgrown, instead of bringing the two extremes expressed on his first album together, James Blake ends up polarising towards different ends of the spectrum and this is what makes it so good. He manages to excel in his execution of his own style, stepping into his own shoes. Whether it's on tracks that feel like proper songs such as Overgrown, or on more interlude-type numbers like DLM, it's the James Blake show through-and-through. Not to say influences aren't present - they're in abundance, everything from D'Angelo to the Digital Lion-credited Brian Eno is felt but reinvented. The RZA is the only other feature on the album, with a surreal vocal performance over Take A Fall For Me. Odd-sounding, supposedly-stereotypical English slang is paired with abstract introspection and thanks to The RZA's voice, I can't tell if I like that or don't, although I know for a fact I'm intrigued. Retrograde does a convincing job of nominating itself as single of the year, a track where James Blake surely flaunts his true potential as a musician, marrying the mix of piano lamentation and sprawling synths. A similar mix builds into something special on I Am Sold, as opposed to tracks like Life Round Here in which a portion ready for the dancefloor springs from nowhere. Our Love Comes Back succeeds in the difficult task of finishing an album this good without disappointing; overall, an album James Blake can be proud to call his second full-length release.

Shed's The Killer fits naturally into Modeselektor's formidable 50Weapons arsenal, experimenting with techno, ambient and even some breakbeat for the main ingredients. The opening track teases the darker things to come leading into some more Berlin-dancefloor ready stompers that seem like they've been converted into song format. I Come By Night feels like something Daphni might come up with in a twisted parallel universe, meshing together exotic springs and nightmarish kicks. The interludes are a highlight, and the not-as-dark tracks such as Phototype don't feel out of place. There's a delectable variation on the album and despite some occasional in-cohesiveness, it's a very solid release.

Perhaps unjustly, I'd always associated Italy with the more cheesier side of dance, so was surprised and curious to find Voices From The Lake were an ambient techno duo force to be reckoned with. Their Silent Drops EP begins nearer the deeper end, letting atmospheric developments lead the tracks forwards. Things take a turn for the eerie on Drop 2 and it all feels very real, with subtle samples coming in that sometimes go unnoticed until they're gone - it feels that right. The EP is an excellent taste of what the duo can do, and I look forward to checking their album out after this fantastic listen.

I can't say I'm fully in touch with my roots, mainly being familiar with popular Bollywood songs on the music side of things from the Indian sub-continent, and I'm listening to more and more contemporary minimal classical music - essentially Steve Reich - so I'm taken aback on finding that Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass crafted an album together. Offering is probably one of my favourites on Passages, with the saxaphone raga and up-tempo melodies soundtracking an imaginary moment of revelation, discovery and tension. Ragas In A Minor Scale builds into a rush of moods and feelings, at times dancing from the speakers and at times tiptoeing lines as thin as soundwaves, but never putting a foot out of line. The record's a wonderful listen, although it might speak more on the classical parts than traditional Hindustani, despite the instruments used.


Fleetwood Mac play with all ideas soft rock, on the iconic Rumours. It's rare I fall for acoustic songs but Never Going Back Again was the first to make me really smile on the album - the funk-shy Dreams and Second Hand News were all well and good however I think the artists pick up momentum over the record. One peak is the single Don't Stop, where pop-rock is isolated into sheer joyful essence. The release heavily benefits from the artists having different degrees of involvement - obviously in the case of several vocalists. This is taken advantage of most on The Chain, sounding powerful and passionate enough to really be the climax of the album for me. Some of the slower-paced material, such as Oh Daddy, never really clicked for me but finishing up with Gold Dust Woman meant the record left me on a happy note. It's an album full of creativity that does need to be heard out - and will certainly reward the listener.

There's definitely a case to be made on A Made Up Sound not getting the props he perhaps deserves for his work, and the reason why he doesn't get those props eludes me. On Shortcuts, the evidence definitely goes in favour of, as he constructs a techno-style beats album, with different electronic explorations manifesting themselves like case studies. One of the keys to albums like these is knowing how far and to what depth a path should be ventured - AMUS is willing to give his music the time necessary to be showcased, such as on the third track. Not all of the tracks are as satisfactory, with the eleventh seemingly coming up a little short - this isn't too much of a problem as if the music isn't as interesting here, it's at least presented as well as possible. This album was enjoyable because not only did it somehow flow as a full-length release should, despite its nature, it also translated the ideas to me by way of pushing me and encouraging me to conduct my own exploration - though never past the point it becomes detrimental.

Wild Nothing threatened to wrong-foot me with Shadow as an excellent opener to Nocturne, with its gentle riffs, strings and croons, and following it up with the somewhat thin Midnight Song. Thankfully things swung back for the better on the title track, echoing electronic-disco and I found myself feeling like the singer, who repeats, "You can have me" almost hopefully. The album is a bittersweet affair holding bliss with its resignation, conjuring memories of Autumn leaves falling to ground and stopping and staring at beauty before Winter comes calling.It occasionally falters, as during the start of Paradise, where the use of electronic instrumentation feels forced and unnatural - something that seems counter-intuitive given the feel of the album. Fortunately, the trips and stumbles don't put the listener off the pleasant walk through this park of memories.