100 words music reviews
The Books’ debut is an album of calculated restraint, gyrating with the numerous flows of one day in our culture. It is a singular record that represents the mundane wait for the kettle above more vivid, memorable experiences. The samples are unknowable, bar a Churchill speech, but sprout up between a gliding cello, a picky […]
‘Vocalcity’ is the sound of a glistening party at the turn of the millennium. This iconic record churned an emotional evolution in house music which emphasised laconic, but passionate narratives over precise electronic components. It said what Sugababes, Spice Girls, or Atomic Kitten used to, but palmed listeners off with frost rather than inviting them […]
On their most substantial project to date, Big Thief boomerang with experimentation, never once flying off. Every sound on this record is contained, but not repressed; expressed, not exhausted. Delicate, take-away philosophies condensate atop the music and it quickly becomes a deeply involving listen, asking politely to be heard and heard well. With eccentric, bruised […]
Cinematography student in Russia? Flour mill businessman? Born-again Christian and denouncer of his own music? Record-manufacturer? Who indeed was William Onyeabor? This 2013 compilation bearing the greatest works of the elusive Nigerian funk musician provides dense rhythm and wild electronic flails as parts to an answer. The lyrics contain scattered thoughts on war, the afterlife, […]
Evident in the title, this indie rock classic is a frantic attempt to locate the first-person character in a field of indecision. ‘Emergency and I’ was wisely delayed until the very end of 1999: if the 20th century had a final note, any of these twelve songs would be an appropriate farewell. Travis Morrison’s boyish […]
On their debut LP, deathcrash cut the ribbon on a concealed world of frayed tenderness. While ‘Return’ is faithful to a rock palette, the band’s stable patience nurtures a crystalline, spacious sound that shelters everything it touches. Throughout, starry washes of guitar crash down with thunderous emotion as the writing seeks to magnify splintered moments […]
This is a beloved album. Partly due to the release of its younger brother in June 2021, ‘Black Metal’ has enjoyed a thorough artistic renaissance, rousing a renewed appreciation for Dean Blunt’s idiosyncratic method. This record manages to be pathologically honest in its message, but layered and innumerable with its atmospheric devices; the strings throughout […]
100 words music reviews 