Memphis A Little Place in the Wilderness
It’s hard to turn a busy song boring, but Canadian flourish-pop duo Memphis is pretty adept at that sort of fumble, letting the bow-tied compositions on their third record, A Little Place in the Wildnerness, sag into a dull, soft-headed mush. Allegorically, it’s like getting dressed for the prom only to sit on the couch watching bad TV all night long. There is promise but it’s confusingly devoid of delivery. Sure, some songs actually creep through the trim, but too much of this album is content to accentuate, and not enough of it is willing to assert itself.
Meanest Man Contest/Languis Split
This may be he first time that psyche-pop and arty hip-hop join forces on a split full-length. The sorta-Bay Area duo Meanest Man Contest carries on with a similar blend of relationship raps over spacey-yet-simple beats (present on their debut, Merit), whereas Languis pumps out oddities that sound like a codeine-tranquilized Brian Wilson covering Suicide-a shift from the poppy new wave of their Plug Research efforts. Although every song on Split is entirely dissociated from the rest of the album, both artists take great strides in pushing their individual styles to the next level.
Matzak Life Beginnings
Right on the heels of his debut 12″ release on Kickboxer, young Nicolas Matuszczak goes whole-hog with a full-length dose of emotionally crafted techno, certain to raise the bar among his fellow Frenchmen. “Algol Star” and “Girl in Water” form around crisp, percolating, 4/4 guidelines while layers of delightfully caustic synth melodies and thick, warbling basslines press forward in a superbly modulated flow. There is a wistful beauty in his storyline approach-whether in the brooding heft of “Lamuerte” or the light-footed shuffle of “Physical”-that demonstrates his duality as songwriter and track-smith.
Massonix Subtracks
Yanking material from various archival formats, Graham Massey fills the 16-year hole in the Massonix release schedule with live tracks from yesteryear… Hooray. While there’s no denying the eclectic merit of his work, the jittery melodies of “Debussa” and the step-sequenced cadence of tracks like “March of the Triton Titans” probably lost something while being snipped and packaged as individual album tracks. Disjointed as it might feel at times, Subtracks is still a fun, retrospective ride through candy-factory synth-noodling, experimental-jazz daydreams, and deep-sea transmissions, but, for Skam, it feels like filler.
Ollo The If If
It’s rare that a duo blends the heavily layered jamming of Can with the downtempo groove of Massive Attack, but Ollo succeeds with flying colors. On their second full-length, these Australian multi-instrumentalists serve up a handful of Kraut jams, incorporating spastic live drums, wah-pedaled guitars, and funk bass from space. If it’s not the trippy guitar solos on “Summer Salt” that weave you into the boys’ interplanetary web, it’ll be the always-shifting synth pads that reel you in and take you under.
Pacha Massive All Good Things
After last year’s slightly poppy, upbeat single “Don’t Let Go,” Pacha Massive has turned their debut album into something rather special. The NYC-based team of multi-instrumentalist/producer Nova and vocalist/bassist Maya relies on a pastiche of sliced, nicely punctuated beats and a host of folksy guitars and flutes. Recalling an older Aterciopelados, Maya’s voice is more R&B-smooth than Andrea Echeverri’s, though it is equally tempered by soulful inquisitiveness. Sung in rapid flourishes of Spanglish and exquisitely produced, All Good Things indicates that many good things are to come from this boogie-down Dominican/Colombian team.
O. Lamm Monolith
Monolith, the first U.S. release for French beat-monster O. Lamm, is a bizarre mix of cut-and-paste glitch and poppy dance music. Imagine Girl Talk collaborating with DAT Politics on some children’s songs, and you’d nearly grasp his frenzied sound. 8-bit loops clash with choppy samples of conversations and violins, and guest spots from Momus and Midori Hirano add to the record’s anything-goes M.O. From the orchestrated hustle of “The Macguffin” to the ADD-techno take on “Tammy Metempsycho Darling,” Monolith is a fast-paced and often hilarious record that’s too fun to resist.
Nine Horses Money For All
Nine Horses is the blanket moniker for David Sylvian’s collaborations with brother Steve Jansen and Burnt Friedman, and Money For All is a mish-mash EP of new tracks, versions, and Friedman remixes from a variety of sympathetic artists like Stina Nordenstam, Atom TM, and Keith Lowe. There are interesting things going on here, not least in the subtle tensions between Sylvian’s grace and sophistication and a more unexpected (and overt) sense of personal/political anger and anxiety. Even if this tension doesn’t quite develop (or regress) into out-and-out discord, it feels wholly, unreservedly appropriate at this point in time.
Panda Bear Person Pitch
Don’t judge Noah “Panda Bear” Lennox by his cutesy name or his even cuter affiliation with the neo-folk-electronic-acoustic band Animal Collective. Lennox’s solo work lets his musical talents shine, and Person Pitch reveals his real interest: layering tones and atmospheres into songs like an audio collage, with tracks like “I’m Not” forming a delicate aural mosaic. Person Pitch‘s opener, “Comfy In Nautica,” is one of Lennox’s most striking pieces, offering a pitch-perfect study in harmony and rhythm that might double as a hymn for some celestial cathedral, floating breezily above the clouds.
