100 words music reviews
The cover of Exile poses two possible scenarios: the person is being thrown, or they are raising their head as an expression of openness. The status of ‘exile’ holds the same dualism—free, in theory only, to go anywhere but your home. The record is a story of youthful longing, and we imagine the protagonist walking […]
Drugdealer makes no secret of his musical influences, jokingly describing his brand as ‘Derivative Rock’. The multi-instrumentalist toes the line between tasteful pastiche and total plagiarism of 70s soft rock, but comes with enough charm to make ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ a joy. His third record brings a funkier edge to his psychedelic sound and […]
Familiarising his eccentric spirit, Benjamin Clementine has produced a big-hearted record that swoops down to greet the listener. It is still unpredictable, but the force conducting ‘And I Have Been’ is benevolent—more like a guide than some epistemically distant energy. Clementine has a deep, timeless presence in his work. Here, he seems to connect history […]
HHSCFETWAS is, in a word, busy. Ashanti Mutinta has now charged three records with her tectonic energy—here, we are pulled through to the trilogy’s cataclysmic end. For all that this record is, it is hip-hop first. It’s a shame that this album provides its least inspiring elements in that genre. The beats don’t offer enough […]
It will surprise no one that Natalia Lafourcade has made a beautiful album. It might surprise some that she has made this beautiful album. De Todas Las Flores is more muffled in essence than her previous records. It has a quiet, life-affirming warmth that cuddles the narrative maturation through love and love lost, taking into […]
As space for fringe behavior becomes surrounded, the importance of art tends to swell in dense, contained pockets. From the mid-1970s to 1983, Argentina was battling a right-wing dictatorship bent on widening the gap between rich and poor. This is a glitzy soundtrack not to freedom, but to resistance. It involves hypnotic grooves and deadpan […]
Midnights is centred around late-night contemplation. It ends up with the lucidity of Taylor bolting up at night to frantically scribe her thoughts, only to realise in the morning that she had actually written “sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby”. Yes, that line made the cut—it is one of the many strained […]
DJ Bone holds that unusual position of an underground legend—the deep love for his work is concentrated, but confined to a very lucky scene. Having been present at and involved in the inception of Detroit techno, the DJ, producer, and record label owner remains 100% independent. It works in favour of his innovative club architecture, […]
“Landing bolts” is a skating term that means executing a trick perfectly with both feet on the bolts of the board. Hagop Tchaparian uses the skate aesthetic, but his debut album is frayed, not clean. He is concerned with the gravity of thought before pumping blood; Bolts sets up its bold techno ambushes with considerable […]
100 words music reviews 