Been ages since we last heard new material by Petra Schelm aka Mollie Wells of Funerals, but right in this very moment, we're pretty much blown away by the gently daunting chords of her brand new song "Stills", which will be out soon as part of a split with //ZOO via Clan Destine Records. This might be the as yet unmastered version of the tune, but oh it's also been a while since a song this classically structured managed to captivate us so thoroughly.
Frankly, the concept of an International Women's Day rubs me wrong. It feels counterintuitive. The fact that it shares calendar space with the International R. Kelly day makes it even weirder. But since I love both women and sex-dripping R&B classics from the 90s, especially when put together in interesting ways in my head, I won't complain further. This afternoon, I woke up to a beautiful vision in The Knife's new music video for the second single "A Tooth From An Eye" off their forthcoming fifth album Shaking The Habitual. Directors Roxy Farhat and Kakan Hermansson subvert age-, power- and gender roles as a girl child enters a sports hall and starts leading a group of men into dance. Following her movements, the disparate and for the most part inexperienced troupe is freed from prestige and fear of intimacy, transcending the hierarchal machismo space of a sports arena. The cornrowed girl, both sweet and tough, is roaring for us to trust her. She's telling us stories we need to hear. 'Who are the people we trust as leaders and why?', The Knife ask. As always their work performs as an allegory for wider, complex societal structures, overall continuously tackling the patriarchy. The lights get dimmer in the sports hall, providing shadow for dead serious tribal play. At some point sparklers are ignited. The whole thing is crackling with magic. Notice how it's making them all shine.
If it weren't for pop music, you would probably think that within Europe, there could hardly be two places more apart from each other, in any respect whatsoever, than the Scandinavian and the Iberian peninsulas. But of course, as we all know, pop music very much is (please bear with me), so mentally connecting those two geographically disparate entities makes perfect sense, especially if you equate Scandinavia with Sweden (sorry, you other ones). Enter Iberia aka Gothenburg's Maja Mathé Milner (of Makthaverskan) and Alexander Palmestål (of now defunct Pistol Disco), who are actually located not in Gothenburg anymore but here in Berlin, which only further proves that Sweden is less a country than a state of mind; just like the Mediterranean (undecided as regards the German capital). What was I talking about? Oh right, Iberia. "Everyday" is the duo's brand new single, unveiled here today by way of this incredibly appropriate video. The song itself is picture-perfect Swedish pop, which means that it is instantly captivating and clearly made to live out there in the spotlight, yet entailing those delicately twisted edges that always manage to leave you slightly unsettled and anxious.
Speaking of states of mind, the video's 'protagonists' clearly have none, but that doesn't really matter in the end; it is actually creepy how perfectly the blatantly alien, deliberately un-hipsterish characters match with Iberia's thrusting, restless and subtly unnerving track. Add to all the above pan-European glory the fact that the video was shot by Rasmus Svensson at the latest Thunderdome festival in Amsterdam last December, and you really got just about every stereotypical continental rave hotspot gathered in a single instance of pop-cultural manifestation. If that ain't meta, I really don't know what is. Hardcore indeed.
Iberia's single Everyday will be out soon via Hybris, with the as yet unnamed debut full-length set to follow later this year.
As many have said about David Kyhlberg aka Cascine's Picture: he is one of those guys who make music that just can't stay on the ground. It automatically drifts up like the kid who flies up into the air with red balloons in Le Ballon Rouge. And seriously, we wouldn't have him any other way; he's magnetized for zooming shooting star style. Here, he gives Sunless '97's already pretty breezy new single "Aurora I" the final touches to turn it into a truly celestial after-hour jam. Check it out below.
Last month, Brighton's Fear of Men released a compilation of early songs and singles, which initially might seem like a rather odd move for such a young band (wasn't this something you were doing when you had run out of ideas but still needed money?), but first, this is the internet age, so more than ever before does an artist's early work inevitably drip out of the depths of the web at some point, so why not turn it into cash while you can, and second, with this outfit in particular it totally makes sense as the quartet has already produced and published such a wealth of quality material that the result does feel like a proper album anyway. Plus this lot very much remains our favourite guitar band du jour, so they could basically sell us anything. Below, watch the brand new video for the wonderful and previously unreleased "Seer".
Fear of Men's Early Fragments single collection is out via Kanine.
With their first-ever release Yearn EP by Paris-based Momentform last October, London cassette imprint New Ideals set their agenda of searching for delightfully off-the-map artists that have a shtick for slightly haunting, nocturnal minimal synth transmissions, or in the label curators' own words, music that 'provokes austere feelings of love and discomfort'. Second offering Fugue clearly fits this description: Made by Kiev native Oksana Zmorovytch aka Blablarism, the four-track EP delves deep into the neglected and forbidden realms of 80s cold wave, while adding just the right amount of both post-Soviet anxiety and contemporary pop twists, with very compelling results indeed. While the tape sadly is already sold out, we are happy to be able to offer two stellar remixes of the EP's signature track "Saccades" today, produced by NFOP favourites Karen Gwyer and The KVB. Both manage to give new meaning to the song's haunting opening line, "My imagination, keeps firing inside…", playing around with the original's basic structures yet leaving intact its dark and agonising leitmotif. Take a listen below.
Kirk Spencer’s new track, "In Treatment", with Louis Scott on vocal duties bounds with the greatest of ease, dusting its hands off. It all hangs low, never fully touching the ground. It’s funky yet never overtly so, which seems the point of funk in the first place, to get you so zoned in that you don’t even notice yourself. Slow and steady wins the race for Kirk here. With a title like "In Treatment" mounting images of mentally bugging, the song itself has no qualms, waving its arms free in the breeze, therapy the furthest shot away. Must have been a good session.
Kirk Spencer’s EP Wonderland March 25 via STRANGERZOO.
Last Sunday, music writer Marc Masters tweeted a "music critic challenge: review a record by a female artist w/out comparing her to other females." And without doubt he has a point. When it comes to writing about women who are involved in whatever genre of music, namedropping of other artists of the same sex appears to happen all too easily, all too sloppily and overall ill-considered. Sure, not every comparison is unreasonable, but ever so often the writers' general attitude may be boiled to one critic's response to Masters' allegation: "It's not our fault all women kinda sound like Kate Bush." Be it mere laziness or actual bias, I'd agree that too many write-ups suffer from a culture of throwing female artists together too easily, which ultimately leads to a sneaking oversimplification of their work due to an implicit denial of each musician's uniqueness, as if even more so than their male counterparts, women were somehow stuck in an endless circle of creative repetition and mutual plagiarism.
When Chicago's Lindsay Powell, hitherto known as part of prog experimentalists Ga'an and one half of sister duo Festival, started releasing solo material under her moniker Fielded, comparisons to other contemporary female artists were quick off the mark, too. It was 2010, after all, and just like the work of a few other, more prominent women in that year, Powell's output started off as fashionably dark and gloomy and employed synths, with song titles like "White Death" or "Demon Seed". And even though Powell's forthcoming sophomore LP Ninety Thirty Thirty is worlds apart from her Catholic Tapes debut Terrageist, it seems safe to predict more light-minded references. Her outstanding vocal skills providing the record's unequivocal focal point, Ninety Thirty Thirty unashamedly celebrates and explores the glamorous tropes of pop music's Golden Era, in an outright manner that makes it an album that perhaps shouldn't even exist anymore nowadays. Exerting sheer grandiosity and unconcealed splendour that has been kind of outdated for at least twenty years, yet without ever making an overly nostalgic or reactionary impression, the LP is truly brilliant, rightfully deemed a 'cosmic art-pop opus' in the press release.
Album track "Eve of a New Moon", proudly premiered here today, is a perfect example for the LP's concept; utilizing almost baroque means such as lush sax solos and enchanting background choirs that immerse the listener, the song nonetheless completely fixates one's attention on Powell's stunning vocal delivery. Take a listen below.
