29 Oct 2013 — Henning Lahmann
In the new video for "This Is How I Would Die", the standout track on Berlin via Melbourne producer Phoebe Kiddo's recently released full-length Artefacts of Broken Dreams, an actress escapes her oppressive domestic surroundings, takes the U1, does some serious Berlin sightseeing on the run (on a side note, before someone feels inclined to call the authorities, let's just assume that everyone involved is aware that filming at the Holocaust Memorial is a delicate matter, but that no one had any intentions to be in any way disrespectful) before ending first in the woods and ultimately by the sea, the archetypical location of the Unknown in our souls, and, in combination with the prototypical fear of drowning, the place where the invincible fact that we all have to die becomes most evident. To be sure, this mis-en-scène by director JuJu Wee Ha is quite a literal visual transposition of Kiddo's piece, however a fitting one, as the model's confused, almost frenzied movements perfectly match the arrangement's jittery, restless drum parts that give us an idea of the auteur's profound lability.
Artefacts of Broken Dreams is out on LA's Non Projects.
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29 Oct 2013 — Henning Lahmann
Here's the thing: pop music from Germany usually fails (no matter if sung in English or German), and watching the disaster unfold gets always more painful the more ambitious the artist's original concept had been. Keeping that in mind, it must be considered almost a marvel how pleasant and compelling The Building's work turns out. After all, the artistic ambitions here seem almost insurmountably high indeed, and from the outset, the band has made sure that no one is left in doubt about that fact – ironic or not, that first 'interview' video posted early last month (watch it!) comes dangerously close to the line between conceptual art and ridiculous ineptitude, and I'm not sure whether or not the line is actually crossed a couple of times during the piece's four-minute running time. What is more, one debut album apparently didn't suffice for this Hamburg trio's aspirations. Instead, we get the same album twice, on two different labels, or rather, what we are confronted with are the same eight songs in different orders, once in a pop-friendly, guitar-focused guise, accompanied by an LP that showcases The Building's electronic side (though calling it anything similar to techno as suggested by the interviewer would certainly be a stretch, what we hear is rather reminiscent of some sort of vaguely post-wave synth music).
We get it. Meta pop is a thing these days. It however remains unclear whether it really needed the sledgehammer to get the point across. Because at the end of the day, what we have before us are truly great pop songs, not least due to the fact that they deliberately do not shy away from any grand gestures, a thing we haven't seen coming from Hamburg in quite a while. The good thing: it works. The three musicians that form The Building probably know best what they are trying to achieve, and they deserve the benefit of the doubt even where the concept appears to be over the top (and I haven't even quoted from the press release yet). That being said, it is almost a relief to watch the restrained visualisation of the truly beautiful ballad "Every Breath I Inhaled From You", a minimalism that is both stylish and artsy without getting trapped in some overblown staging that could only obstruct the music's elegance. The album, both albums, contain more of such gems that may not reinvent pop music but serve the listener's desires on a level that is distinctly not meta in any way whatsoever, so we'll leave it to those who want to keep looking for transcendence in order to find those other facets that might or might not be there.
Building Part 1 and 2 are released on November 1 by Clouds Hill and Questions & Answers, respectively.
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28 Oct 2013 — Henning Lahmann
Berlin's Godmother might still be rather new in the game, but the trio is beyond doubt one of the most intriguing things to emerge from the shadows of those overabundant Kreuzberg/Neukölln circles that keep haunting the city. "These Things Take Time", the a-side to their latest single, hits all the right notes; exuberant, luscious, and delightfully kinky, the song spits out hook lines that stick like the floor at Kater Holzig at 11am, and we'd like to add that "Sodomomy may be legal / But believe me, it'll bleed a little" just effectively smashed the competition for 2013's greatest lyric. To call the statement bold is somewhat misleading and would miss the point however, the implied politics of "These Things Take Time" are surely more subtle than a tongue-in-cheek reference to anal sex; at the bottom line, it's perhaps a thing that works in this city better than anywhere else right now. The video, directed without much of a proper budget by Monika Dorniak, appropriately visualises the deliberate vagueness between commentary and innocent fun, utilising yet never exploiting notions of queerness that play with the cliché.
The These Things Take Time 7" is out today on New Pangea. Get it on vinyl or digitally over here. Highly recommended.
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24 Oct 2013 — Tonje Thilesen
Just like Emily Reo or Mutual Benefit, Katie Kim's take on DIY bedroom pop is something of very high quality, which indeed makes us wonder why her songs haven't been heard by more people already. Like a stripped-down Chelsea Wofle, "The Feast" takes place in an icy landscape du noir, somehow denying all existense of human emotion — only to prove the exact opposite. Watch the video for the track below, directed by Neil O'Driscoll. Also, don't forget to check out Cover & Flood if you haven't already.
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18 Oct 2013 — Evelyn Malinowski
Björk's Medulla is an album to which we are still catching up. Back in 2004, voices, accapella sound effects, and beat-boxing all running through a sound board for minimal editing and of course capturing was a bold move. Katie Gately's production for Blue Tapes at once resembles Medulla's fragmentation of mouth-centric music. It is dark, restless, unpredictably glitchy, and mouthed; However, these traits are so dominant that there is room to ponder whether supremacy amounts to toppling, and that the ferociousness is one of dark aural hyperbole.
“Pipes” is a fourteen minute long bumpy ride which starts off dreaming, buoyant. But eventually the voice-based acid drums and their panning shake whatever stable grounds the more pure-sounding, premature part of the song is, or was, on. The swelling occurs again, and, like before, it is devoured and taken away, swallowed, done being chewed, to present us with a completely different and unforeseen, jarring design: the next bite. This surprise design differs per swell, categorizing the track as overall improvisationalistic.
Are these nuisances mimicries of indecisive human (social) behavior? Whatever interpretative niche they may take, there is doubtlessly a tone of anger in Gately's musical world, refracted by Gregorian chant. Such can be also gleaned from her highly recommended self-titled release on Public Information.
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01 Oct 2013 — Parker Bruce
Rapper Hua Li (aka Peggy Hogan) – based out of Montréal – who just played with Cakes Da Killa during Pop Montreal, put out her very first video (directed by Eduardo Menz and David J. Romero) late last week for a song called "Pinkett," a production by Teck-Zilla. The song uses the sample from Drake's "Over" where he says, "Bought to set it off in this bitch / Jada Pinkett" (a reference to the late 90s movie "Set It Off" that Jada Pinkett Smith was in with Queen Latifah). The video has quite the cast of characters: two shirtless guys wearing unicorn heads, a male acrobat careening around a stripper pole, a white cat, and boys wearing hats that say "Cake" and "Bad Kid." Top it all off with Hua Li herself putting some of her stripper pole class knowledge to work. Go get her mixtape The Bound Feat. Pt. 1 that came out in June on her bandcamp, and if you're in Montréal tonight, go see her DJ at the Royal Phoenix.
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01 Oct 2013 — Henning Lahmann
When Henry Schiller wrote about Chicago outfit Pillars and Tongues' latest single "Knifelike" a couple of weeks back, he suggested it would be perfect "to watch a sunrise to". While I found his advice initially quite convincing, the image is lost now that I've watched the official, David Sampson-directed video for the song. Whatever kind of sunshine might have been implied in the three-piece's folk-indebted compositiion originally, Sampson's dreamlike visual accompaniment aims more at the subconscious: gathered around a rather uncanny than comforting bonfire, band members Beth Remis, Ben Babbitt, and Mark Trecka present or are faced with – that remains deliberately unclear – different artefacts whose significance for the protagonists might necessitate proper psychoanalysis. The video's overall tone is correspondingly and, we may add, appropriately sombre. It's not exactly pessimism that prevails, let alone depression. But just like the song's darker overtones, an indistinct, fragile cautiousness has taken over, hinting at a different kind of poetry.
"Knifelike" appears on End-dances, which is out now on Empty Cellar.
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30 Sep 2013 — Henning Lahmann
Watch the video for the latest track by Sunken Foal aka Dublin-based producer Duncan Murphy. "Cutty's Advice" is simultaneously frenzied and laid back: while the footwork-indebted beat is urging enough to be a call to arms, the underlying synth arrangements evoke an almost converse sentiment, unfolding peaceful lush soundscapes that induce a dreamlike state of mind. The visuals, close-ups of sundrenched plants and flowers shot in Murphy's garden, augment the latter feeling, resulting in a nice end-of-summer accompaniment that may prepare us for the cold days ahead.
"Cutty's Advice" will appear on Friday Syndrome Volume 2, out sometime in November via Countersunk.
(Photo)
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