Recommended Album Releases
Posted: May 25, 2012 Filed under: Actress, Albums, Burial, Gothtrad, Ital, Lotus Plaza, Monolake, Rrose, Yet Lane Leave a comment »In response to the NME’s more miss than hit ‘21 Albums of the Year So Far‘ list, here is our pick for nine, as June appears on the radar.
Ital: Hive Mind– It takes a few listens but this still remains for me LP of the year. Fabulously rusty and dirty prog techno, the more you let it play the more it seems to please. Like the Burial release it is dominated by marathon long, oddly pleasing and tensely created tracks, but it works.
Lotus Plaza: Spooky Action at a Distance– You hear bands being compared to My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Chapterhouse et al too many times these days. Not many of them are fit to lace those bands’ boots (assuming that they wear boots) but this Lotus Plaza record is one that is right up there. I hear also moments that are of the equal to the wonderful Kurt Vile. Splendid LP.
Burial: Kindred– Burial here provides us with three storming, wonderfully sinister sounding pieces. Keeping his sound fresh, Kindred clocks in at just under 30 minutes, but there are many twists and turns making it excellent value. Either it’s been an underwhelming year for new music or Burial just keeps getting better. Either way this is still one of the standout releases so far in 2012.
Goth-Trad: New Epoch– The best example of how dubstep (or is it post-dubstep?) can still appeal. Heavy-hitting, with lots of depth from the Japanese producer. Most enjoyable.
R Rose: Artificial Light– Cracking EP this, not dissimilar in areas to German producer Pole; all space-y dub and dark techno. Crisp, push-along and downright captivating. One of my favourite releases of late. Great value.
Actress: R.I.P.– Praised to the hilt was this post-everything, wonderfully produced electronic album. Needs to be heard. And hear it.
La Sera: La Sera– If it’s a break up album you’re after, sung with charm, hope and supreme pop confidence, look no further. A winner in its overly crowded field.
Yet Lane: The Echo Show– Sky-leaning and lovable psych-pop from the Parisians. I smiled, I got sad, then I smiled again.
Monolake: Ghosts– Lab produced, late night flavored crystal clear tech-dub done in masterful fashion.
New LP Out From Squarepusher
Posted: May 21, 2012 Filed under: Album, Squarepusher, Warp Records | Tags: electro-funk Leave a comment »
Squarepusher: Ufabulum
I have sent in some more words on this LP and Squarepusher in general to be published here. But it is worthy of a mention right here too. For me it’s a return to high NRG and driving form from Mr Tom Jenkinson. The album is faster paced and wholly electro in comparison to his last few albums. I personally enjoy his work more when he does this sort of thing. London’s Metro magazine says that it has a “twisted sense of fun”. Very true. He never seems to rest on his laurels does Squarepusher, just like contemporaries Venetian Snares and Luke Vibert/Wagon Christ. We here at the Dukla Prague Away Kit shall forever salute all three. Cover art looks not unlike the recent Beach House one too. Just thought I’d throw that useless bit of information in.
Top New Single Release From Gold Panda
Posted: May 19, 2012 Filed under: Ghostly Intl, Gold Panda, Single Release Leave a comment »
Gold Panda: Mountain / Financial District
I do like the two cuts available here from Essex producer Gold Panda. He put out an album, Lucky Shiner, that was well rated during the later months of that year we know of as 2010. It was preceded with several singles all of which appeared on said LP. He specialises in Four Tet like summer-y sounds and rhythms, with an added ingredient of box of coloring pens Indian-tinged flavors and minimal house. The eastern vibe continues with the first track here, the slow and fractured Mountain, before things get even better with the Boards Of Canada enquired Financial District. Which is also slow of vibe and fractured of melody. Supremely of value indeed. If, like I, you enjoy listening to anything by Four Tet or BOC, you’re also sure to be rather into is.
The Wonder Of Clinic
Posted: May 19, 2012 Filed under: Clinic | Tags: psych-pop Leave a comment »I love listening to the Liverpudlian band Clinic. It is such a wonderfully odd experience. Accessible yet innocently bonkers. An interesting alternative form of pop music. 
They are not too much up their own asses either, unlike some. They are having fun, but would like us, the listener, to join in at any time. It’s all not exclusive only to Clinic, this fun. We hear lots about bands sounding like no-one else. Well, the only people Clinic sound like is Clinic. In a different type of world (but don’t ask me which type exactly) this group would be so much more appreciated. Yet I get the feeling they are indeed that, only just not by anywhere near enough people their brilliantly quirky back catalogue deserves. But maybe we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Sometimes their music sounds like obscure 60s psychedelia, at other times surf pop; sometimes even an amalgamation of the two. There is often a can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on sinister undertow to Clinic too. Yet it’s always uniquely Clinic. You may also remember their music from such adverts as Coors Light and Weetabix. After 12 years, six much recommended studio albums, and around twenty single releases, we salute you Clinic.
Beach House: Bloom
Posted: May 18, 2012 Filed under: Album, Beach House, Bella Union | Tags: dreampop Leave a comment »
Believe it or not sometimes ‘big’ records come along that I actually love rather than think “no, I don’t get this at all”. I am thinking Animal Collective’s excellent Merriweather Post Pavilion from a few years ago, or even Deerhunter’s equally top Halcyon Digest that landed in 2010. A select group to which Bloom by Beach House can have a decent shout at being added. There are things relating to the Baltimore two-piece that I am less than keen on: the “chillwave” scene they had a big hand in spawning; with too many mediocre bands pushing all the correct chillwave or dreampop buttons. Most of it isn’t that good, and also would have been cast off as not terribly interesting in 1992, never mind in 2012. Also, some of those band images do look a bit hippie and flowery to the point of pretentiousness (see image). 
But the thing that Beach House have in their favour is the easily identifiable quality to the songs that they own. This LP continues on from where the well received Teen Dream left off two years ago. If anything the songs here are less, shall we say,experimental, less sideways. But that isn’t always a bad thing. Because, put simply, this is a record of steadily impressive tracks, sung majestically, and beautifully crafted in an almost nursery rhyme sort of fashion. Each element within and piece of instrumentation used compliment the other to the point that it’s all nothing short of pitch perfect. It all sounds comforting and homely that you could almost reach out and touch it. Some say that Beach House’s music is polished and widescreen, but I tend to hear little moments of subtle fuzziness, loops and tiny beats. Maybe you could call it 24″ widescreen as opposed to 72″? Their influences we already know about, but Beach House take these influences and come up with something good and unique all to themselves. Sorry if that all sounds rather cliché, but cliché’s exist because they happen to be true.
Hodgson Anounces England Squad
Posted: May 17, 2012 Filed under: Football | Tags: euro 2012 Leave a comment »“The squad is as follows… ” then the new coach reeled off the 23 names one-by-one. Every journalist there scribbled down the names on their little notebooks. The manager got up and left. 
No questions were answered for no questions were asked. The writers printed the names in each of their newspapers the following morning under the headline “England Euro Squad For 2012″. And that was it. Ex-players on golf courses were not approached to give their bland, yawn-inducing opinions. Writers who could obviously do a better job than the coach did not write column on top of column about who should have been included and why, who should have been left out and why; “was this player left at home because of…?” and so on and so on. People did not call in to radio shows giving their know-all opinions either. Then England went out and played the best football they’ve played in a major tournament for decades. Those who then said that this was no coincidence had more than a point.
Rocking My World
Posted: May 14, 2012 Filed under: Placecard, Space Hardware, Tracks | Tags: house Leave a comment »
Placeholder: Brothers
This is an artist I know little or nothing about. Even the label, Space Hardware is, well, hard to get any information on. It’s one of those releases that has me wondering if it’s someone more famous and well-known, putting out a track as a side project just to see how it gets received, or maybe they just have too much time on their hands Why, it could even be David Bowie and another change in direction. It’s a rather soothing, neat piece of work indeed, full of click-breaks and synths that sound like some sort of digitized off-kilter horn. Ok, it generally has a feel of something that’s been done to death lately, but it’s still a nice stand alone piece. What also has it a cut above is its warm and almost touching appeal. I kind of like the fact information is vague. But, hey, I’m that sort of bloke. If you know exactly who it is, then do not get in touch. It also gets played this month here. You can listen to it below.
Live Review: The Undertones, Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast
Posted: May 13, 2012 Filed under: Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Live, The Undertones | Tags: punk-pop Leave a comment »
The Undertones, not yesterday
True pros are The Undertones. Here they banged out track after track of perfect punk-pop, full of hooks and sing-along goodness. The big crowd boogied and smiled and let themselves go. The band also smiled and joked between songs. Of course they have played these tunes many times before, some of them for 35 years. Second nature. The on-stage banter was good too. The first three songs were a triple whammy power house to get the audience on their side right away (as if there was ever a doubt). “Jimmy Jimmy”, “Jump Boys”, and “Here Comes the Summer” were all stupendous. Attacking right from the off. I scribbled these 3 tracks down on the back of a bank receipt, somehow able to hold onto my pint at the same time. This was just as impressive as the band’s performance, if you ask me. The excellent vocalist Paul McLoone then asks the audience “what time’s the band on at?”. A few songs later and John O’Neill self-deprecatingly mentions how the last chord of the previous tune is the same chord as that which kicks off the next: “maybe we should just keep it going in order to save energy”.
McLoone swaggers around stage, Morrissey-like; all shakes of the hip and shoulders. He looks like he’s truly enjoying himself. In fact, the whole band do. I was pleased to hear “When Saturday Comes” introduced as “a song a football magazine took for its name”. They also throw in “Teenage Kicks” midway through the set, and it went down about as well as anything on the night, as one would only expect. A nice mix of material spanning the band’s 35 years, and all of it still sounding tip-top, with the energy and enthusiasm of 18 year-olds playing their first gig. Yet there is a well-drilled maturity and supreme confidence about them that one could almost make the case that there is no better time to see them live than now. The majority of their songs may indeed be of a specific time, but equally they are not of a time; basically they sound as fresh now as ever. They are those type of songs, they are that type of band. Superb stuff.
My Bloody Valentine Reissued
Posted: May 12, 2012 Filed under: Album, My Bloody Valentine, Sony | Tags: experimental, shoegaze Leave a comment »
MBV, then
My Bloody Valentine have become a cult band during the last twenty years, no doubt aided by the fact they have not released anything that could be called new material since the seminal Loveless from 1991. They were shoegaze pioneers, yet at the same time they were not really of a movement or scene (as acts that are considered pioneers often are, in a strange sort of way). They were a kind of contradiction sort of band. They were unique sounding, and their lack of material and interviews given and so on led to a mystique and no shortage of myths surrounding their recording techniques and all round fussiness etc. The most famous story, true or otherwise, was how they near had Alan McGee’s Creation label going bust due to the long and expensive studio time required for the making of Loveless. This being a few years before McGee by chance spotted Oasis down the bill one Sunday night in Glasgow during the spring of 1993. Or so that particular story goes. Even little known Irish band from the early 2000′s, PS I Love You, wrote a song with the lyric “where on earth is Kevin Shields”. Here is the unedited version in all its glory. The late 80s/early 90s was the period whenever the Dublin ensemble were at their recording and output peak. This also coincided with the peak of Creation Records. Primal Scream and House Of Love were among the other people on the label at the time. MBV’s brand of originality has been described famously as “beauty under siege”. Some of my favorite bands can be described thus. I am immediately thinking Autechre for one. Their two studio albums from the period– 1988′s Isnt Anything and 1991′s Loveless (“a much played CD”– John Peel speaking in ’91)– as well as a further CD of early EP tracks– are out now in pristine, remastered (by frontman Kevin Shields himself) and repackaged quality. Slanting and enchanting.
Brief Review Of The New Wedding Present Album
Posted: May 11, 2012 Filed under: Album, Scopitones, Wedding Present | Tags: northern british guitar pop Leave a comment »
The Wedding Present: Valentina
Okay I admit to being late with this one. Very late in fact. But for some reason I only got my mitts on a hard CD copy this week. Maybe I kind of knew what to expect so was in no particular rush (is that a good or bad thing?). Like the headline says, this is going to be quick. Valentina (sounds more like a Cinerama title) is the best and most consistent Wedding Present (notice how I didn’t say “Weddoes”?) LP since they re-took the name from the light grasp of Cinerama eight years ago. The artwork and packaging here is rather nice, too. They shoot, they score! Out as usual on Scopitones. I love that word. “Scopitones!” Pitchfork says of the album: “Valentina suggests that the only thing they’ve been listening to lately is their own discography”. Which, I guess, is no bad thing. Like The Fall, despite all the things going on in the world that make one depressed, knowing that The Wedding Present are still going and putting out good and pleasing music goes some way toward making things a little bit better. Actually I ended up writing more words than had set out to do. Should I keep the headline? Alright then, consider it kept.
