EP Review: Without You - John Talabot

Historically the DJ-Kicks series are known for some of the new original material that comes with the mix albums - each artist normally producing one new track specifically for the album. In the past these have included a number of highlights - Tiga's Man Hrdina, Hot Chip's My Piano and The Juan Maclean's Feel So Good all stick out for me - and in the past these have often seen their own  release complete with remixes from artists selected by the compilation artist.

In the new release of Without You, DJ-Kicks are returning to this tradition, selecting the original composition from John Talabot's 2013 compilation, Without You.

Opening the EP, the original track benefits from the separation from Talabot's DJ-Kicks entry, itself a great compilation, simply for the focus it earns in standing on its own, unmixed. A significant portion of time has passed since Talabot's 2012 debut album Fin, and hearing Without You in its full form only adds to the yearning for new material... It stands up there with much of the material on Fin, a forlorn and heartfelt slice of psych house, haunted vocals calling out as rhythmic sonar-like synths pulse through the smoke.

Alongside the original are three alternative versions. The Melchior Productions Ltd Sueno Sin Ti mix (which translates as 'dream without you' from Talabot's native Spanish) is more minimal, focusing on shifting percussive movements and the looped refrain of the main synth line. The vocal hook just occasionally sneaks in, but it is a more muted take that retains the mood but applies it to a subtler take.

Oskar Offermann's Without Her Remix is warmer - a more upfront minimal house version. He plays with the elasticity of the track's pulsing synths and bass, creating warped cosmic soundscapes that once again emphasise the alienation of the original.

The best is kept for last... Mistakes Are Okay's Midnight Version feels the most distinct, an incredibly atmospheric alternate take that slows the original down and places the focus squarely on the organic synth sound that permeates much of Talabot's work to date... Folding in a robotic bassline with the layered melodies and vocals of the original create something that feels electronic and thoroughly cinematic... Beautiful.

Without You

£3.96

Buy on Amazon

Without You is released tomorrow through K7 Records. Order from Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link].

Listen to a selection of the tracks via Soundcloud below.

2012 Album of the Year, Part Three: 5 to 1

Today I wrap up the final post on my Albums of the Year, confirming the five best long-players of the year.

As with yesterday's post, the headings link to album reviews where they exist, and there is a Spotify player and an affiliate link to the MP3 on Amazon.co.uk where possible.

Once again, don't forget there is a Spotify playlist including songs from almost every album on the top ten and the long-list, together with songs from some of the best single and EP releases this year. You can check out the playlist here.

5. Kill For Love - Chromatics

2012 felt like it would belong to Chromatics entirely at one point, up until Frank Ocean came along, but it goes without saying that it was the band's biggest year to date.

Kill For Love's gothic tones, all black lace and poison, may be the first thing listeners noticed upon the opening bars of Neil Young cover 'Into The Black'. It is the dalliance with futurism that made this album so essential however - a haunted reflection of a future we can only hope to avoid, and the perfect soundtrack to late night driving.

Get it on Amazon.

4. Channel ORANGE - Frank Ocean

I was never as taken with Frank Ocean's Nostalgia, Ultra as everyone else and as a result it was some time before I gave Channel ORANGE the room it takes to worm its way into your head. Unusually for a popular R&B star the appeal of Ocean's music isn't instantly all that obvious - the joints are well seasoned but the production work isn't as quick to deliver as that of either the Neptunes or Timbaland in their heyday.

The real reason Channel ORANGE is a classic album is because of the depth of Frank's mind it portrays. Whether it is the spellbound, unrequited and insistent 'Thinkin Bout You' or the paranoid and jealous slow-epic 'Pyramids', it was the words Ocean used that really made this album appeal. So rare is it to hear such attention to detail and sophistication on a record so commercially successful.

Get it on Amazon.

3. Lonerism - Tame Impala

On which Kevin Parker takes every element of his début Tame Impala release Innerspeaker and builds on them in every way. Lonerism was a psychedelic trip through its creator's mind with a soundtrack obviously influenced by the past but created in a way that is only possible right now.

No other album had as much incredibly dense and startlingly beautiful production work this year. At it's best, as on 'Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could', Lonerism sounds like we're all just dreams inside Parker's head.

Get it on Amazon.

2. Fin - John Talabot

This year the top two positions on my list were more heavily contested than during any other year. John Talabot created an electronic album that seemed to re-imagined what the format could do. Much more for the hardcore than anything from the likes of Cut Copy or Hot Chip and yet it retained a similar sense of immediacy. 

Crucially Talabot made an album that appears to be universally loved, doing something for almost everyone. Fin feels like a sign-post for the future - the raw, bluesy vocal refrain from 'When The Past Was Present' represents 2012's conflicted nature perfectly - encouragingly futuristic and yet overwhelmed with uncertainty.

Get it on Amazon.

1.  The Haunted Man - Bat For Lashes

Before The Haunted Man Natasha Khan already made fascinating pop music. By focusing on a specific theme - moving on from ghosts of the past - Bat For Lashes achieved so much more with much less.

The Haunted Man may not exactly be a straight-forward pop album, but everything from the restrained artwork to the immaculately handled production screamed that this was an album Khan had poured everything in to, determined to create a living, breathing record (in the original sense) of herself.

And it works, consistently and excellently, across the entire 52-minute duration. Every track creates a surprising moment, and yet the whole is both accessible and consistently themed - an album soundtracking the end of Khan's emotional winter, complete with snowy soundscapes.

The shadow of Kate Bush is impossible to ignore but Khan uses that inspiration to create an album of incredibly well-defined songs that are all unmistakably her own, and much more interesting than those of her contemporaries.

As with any great album there are too many brilliant tracks to call-out, but it would be difficult to avoid mentioning the naked-yet-elegantly-wasted 'Laura', a poignant tribute to the trappings of fame. The Haunted Man's greatest moment however is the title track, complete with its all-male choir, aerial synth line and rumbling bass. This may be a pop album, but it's unlike any other you will have heard all year.

Get it on Amazon.

And that's it. Thanks for staying with the site this year and please feel free to comment, call out what I've missed or what your favourites are. Normal service will be resumed next week!

Album Review: Fin - John Talabot

Image source: Red Bull Music AcademyFollowing on from my write-up on Cloud Atlas' Attack On Nothing earlier this week I couldn't let John Talabot's Fin pass by without comment.

I'd not previously heard of Talabot before a month or so back when the press for Fin started rolling in. After a brief listen on Spotify I knew this was an album I needed to own.

Fin feels like a commentary on electronic music itself. Whilst portions of dance music twist themselves into an ever tighter rubber band ball trying to define exactly what contemporary dubstep 'means' to nine decimal points here is an album that feels like a broad snapshot of the past twenty-five years taken through the lens of a brand new high-definition camera. There are moments that recall early-nineties dance, eighties electro and noughties minimal but it does so in a way that feels utterly consistent. In a sense this is an album of no style, not in terms of lacking stylistic sense (definitely not) but in that it has no genres tied to it at all.

It also captures subtleties of human emotion - 'Oro y Sangre' is all moody blues without ever uttering a word whilst 'Journeys', featuring Etkhi on vocals, feels like sunny expeditions through tropical islands. Opener 'Dapak Ine' has paranoia before emerging butterfly like halfway through with a key change that casts off the worry as easily as swallowing a pill. The latter takes all the texture and detail of minimal techno and applies it to an instrumental that manages to come off as accessible - Ricardo Villalobos with a hook you can remember, basically. This is clearly the work of someone who really knows what they are doing.

As things move towards the end of the album you can't help but feel the warmth of Talabot's hometown Barcelona pulse through this record. These are themes for losing yourself too. 'When The Past Was Present' aptly captures the cynicism-free optimism of rave and packages it up into something that means you can almost feel yourself getting lost on the dance floor for the first time all over again - it's like Talabot set out to re-create Moby's 'Go' and somehow made a classic even better.

Closing on 'So Will Be Now', bouncing beats, handclaps and bruised vocal chants Fin feels appropriately like a climatic full stop - the end of the beginning. Debut records that are well realised are rare - even more impressive is that this one does so much whilst relying on so little in the way of genre or contemporaries.

Fin is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links]; stream now on Spotify.