Single Review: Monotronic - Museum of Love

Museum of Love is the new collaborative project from LCD Soundsystem's Pat Mahoney and Juan Maclean member Dennis McNany, who also produces as Jee Day and runs Run-Roc Records. Dennis writes most of the music and Pat's on the vocals and the album, which features friends (are you excited? I'm excited!), is due in early 2014.

"Monotronic" is one of the most bewilderingly uplifting and record that has come out from the DFA stable in some time. It's a gently bubbling track - a little Krautrock,  a little techno - with vocals of unexpected happiness that feels ever so slightly malevolent.

Angelic vocal choruses provide melodic lightness and Mahoney's falsetto is slightly delirious sounding and, frankly, it's kind of glorious... And then it suddenly stops. In its tracks. And you start wondering what the hell an album of this would sound like...

 Monotronic is out now on DFA, you can grab it on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link] or high quality MP3 or WAV from DFA. Listen via Soundcloud below:

Museum Of Love "Monotronic" DFA2390 first single "Down South" available here: http://store.dfarecords.com/products/dfa2389

Album Review: Dust Red Skies - Dust Red Skies

Enjoy! My channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/UFVibe

Dust Red Skies is the new self-titled album and collaboration from San Francisco based John Brian Kirby, who I've previously featured on BlackPlastic.co.uk in his Nonagon guise.

Yet this is a very different album to Days Away, The Nonagon album that I last heard from Kirby. Where that was an album that felt enjoyably lost in the left-field this is a more polished affair, not that Days Away lacked finesse. For starters, this is a partnership - so Kirby is joined by a vocalist in the form of Vibrasol's Angie Donkin, whose vocals grant this album a more human feel with a tangible emotional core. Donkin's vocals feel very much like the centre to these tracks - they are full and soar over some of these tracks to create a sparse feeling sound where the music creates auditorium's for her to sing in.

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Dust Red Skies

Which isn't to undermine the music itself. Kirby's productions glisten with little details - the subtle strumming of a guitar or crunchy rhythms that then at times endure the full-frontal assault of massive wobbly bass lines. But there is an undeniable accessibility to this music - it feels like in their collaboration Kirby and Donkin have tempered each other, and often the result is positive, as on the sparkling melodies and vocal harmonies of "Shadowless".

The sound Kirby is going for feels like dusty desert evenings of the near-future - there is almost a country feel to the songwriting itself and it feels like that is where the album's title comes from. It is reminiscent of Hybrid's more melodic vocal moments.

The only downside of this is that it feels a little like some of Kirby's rough edges have been worn down in the creation of this album. The production still impresses in it's technical ability, but it may not have quite the same verve when it is bound to supporting vocals so much of the time.

Dust Red Skies helps to demonstrate Kirby's enduring and varied talents if nothing else, and is well worth a listen. You can stream and purchase it on Bandcamp. 

EP Review: Together EP - EJECA

Northern Ireland's EJECA appears to be going from strength to strength at the moment, with remixes for Bloc Party and The Magician as well as a growing reputation as a DJ. This EP follows on from last year's Horizon EP and marks his return to Needwant, the label behind that release.

"Together" moves away from the pure garage influenced sound of "Horizon" but keeps its eyes firmly on the past with jungle rhythms and a starry-eyed piano house riff that gives the track a distinctive early-90s rave feel. It's unashamedly nostalgic but Ejeca does this style so well. Marking his first release on Needwant, Terence Parker delivers a more upfront Detroit influenced house version, with firm four-four rhythms and a driving groove.

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Horizon EP - EJECA

On the flip side is a deeper 'Night Edit' of "Horizon" by EJECA, who gives it a fuller beat and a more dubby sound. The EP is rounded out with a second original track in "Forest", a deep, restrained track that points to a more varied sound. It is much less of a dancefloor track and more of a moody instrumental, with soulful strings hidden within a mix that dials up some round, sophisticated drum work and bass.

 Together EP is released through Needwant next week, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link]. Check it out on Soundcloud:

Listen to EJECA - Together (Available now on Needwant) by EJECA | Explore the largest community of artists, bands, podcasters and creators of music & audio.

Album Review: Nonfiction - The Range

I've been following Donky Pitch a release from Niño back in July 2011 yet they have only just got around to releasing their first long-player. It comes from The Range, whose Seneca EP I praised earlier this year.

It's a fitting debut release for the label - The Range has provided some of their best material to date and he ploughs a middle ground through the varied sound Donky Pitch deliver, combining disparate electronic and urban styles such as jungle, grime and R&B.

Nonfiction expands on the ideas of The Range's earlier EPs and uses the extra time to blow things out a little bit further. The resulting album is wider in scope and has a little more emotional depth. From opener "Loftmane" there is a cool distance and an urbane aloofness to the music that makes the album feel like a night drive through gritty alleyways perceived through a veneer of expensive automobile glass windshield.

"Jamie" is a fusion of delicate piano melodies and distorted drum beats with a distant rap aggressively pushing an agenda of isolation that reinforces the sense that this is an album about emotional distance within crowded spaces. "FM Myth" builds from a relatively gentle drum beat that stumbles forward whilst a high-pitched synth melody rides above to a full-on jungle grime assault, complete with serious low-end bass.

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Nonfiction - The Range

The Range's key achievement is that he managed to make the tracks feel distinct yet part of a whole. "Hamiltonian" starts with a fragile and exposed piano and string couplet that is layered over time with a series of additional electronic elements - bass, drum patterns, samples, even an air raid siren - yet it doesn't sound ridiculous in the way this description suggests, instead a sad, urgent rhythm emerges. In it's constrained length Nonfiction feels like a densely packed short story - all ideas and no padding.

Nonfiction is brought to close on "Metal Swing", a kinetic piece with rhythms that scurry along the floor as another distant vocal is cut and looped and sliced into its own percussive movement. An couple of electronic pads, one delivering bass and the other more melodic, provide a warmth as the album loops itself out of existence.

Ultimately Nonfiction is short and sweet and a welcome debut from Donky Pitch.

Nonfiction is released through Donky Pitch on 14 October, pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link].  Check out the trailer below:

Donky Pitch are very proud to announce that on October 14th 2013 they will release the first album from their stable of artists, Providence RI's The Range. Following two EP's on the label over the last 18 months, 'Nonfiction' is an 11 track full length that further defines his uniquely crafted musical outlook; a sound that takes in ethereal classical instruments, tough intricate percussion, thick bass and packs them with melody and emotion.

Album Review: Reunion - Alex Barck

Alex Barck has slowly been drip-feeding tracks from his Reunion album for most of this year but this is the first opportunity we've had to hear the whole album, due out on Sonar Kollektiv tomorrow, in its entirety.

Reunion lives up to the promise of all those singles. The album is inspired by Barck's move to the staggeringly picturesque La Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean and those singles still boast a glossy tropical sound. "Re-Set" still comes across like the soundtrack to a pure blue landscape, the sea extending to the horizon only to meet more expansive blue sky. Jonathan Bäckelie, AKA Ernesto, featured and co-wrote both "Don't Hold Back" and "We Get High" on previous releases. The former's bluesy anger is still spat like bullets from Bäckelie's mouth, but it's joined by a new and similarly deep track in album opener "Doubter", which sways as a windy percussion stirs around the vocals and conjures a disco soul track with Eastern influence.

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Reunion - Alex Barck

Pete Josif, the White Lamp vocalist who delivered the "Re-Set" vocal and also resides on Sonar Kollektiv, delivers another track in "Spinning Around'. It's similarly enthusiastic, full of dreamy couplets that capture the spring of love only to be followed with doubting and pleading at the thought of it all falling apart. "Move Slowly", with a building cacophony of noise, sounds like a foreboding hot mess of excitement.

There are several instrumentals sandwiched between the vocalised cuts and they shine just as brightly. The album concludes with the title track, itself a climatic 11-minute instrumental that starts gently but slathers the gently composed melodies in clattering drums and warbling bass to create a fitting full-stop amongst the sound of birds circling...

Reunion is undoubtedly one of my favourite albums of this year. It has a widescreen vision and is full of detail and yet it also feels remarkably restrained, free of gimmicks and skits and just focused on one crucial thing: deliver 12 remarkable tracks.

Reunion is out tomorrow of Sonar Kollektiv, available to order now from Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3 [affiliate links].