Christine And The Queens - Chaleur Humaine

Excellent, if not a bit too polished pop from France. Initially I suspected that this record suffered from "lead single syndrome", and whilst to some degree that statement still stands, this is a subtly clever album that will grow on you over time. Well, unless you exclusively listen to shit like Hatebreed, then you'll probably despise this, obviously.

This was subject to one of those weird comeback-outta-nowhere scenarios; having originally being released in France back in 2014, yet marketed as an entirely new release here in the UK in 2016. In 2017, most idiots have forgotten about it already, which isn't surprising really; some of the songs drag, I'll have to be honest, but it is clinically executed, and Christine's (real name Héloïse Letissier) delivery is a an astute homage to figureheads of pop both past and present. 

If you've got nothing else to do, click play. If you come here for the grindcore posts, I probably wouldn't bother, though. 

Hong Kong Express - This

Perhaps it is because I find myself more and more nocturnal, with my life seemingly spent basking in the constant glow of some sort of screen or interface, but I find myself becoming one with the [ v a p o r ] ((( a  e  s  t  h  e  t  i  c ))). Yes, this is the only logical reason I can think for my sudden interested in what is referred to as vaporwave. I am still a little bit unsure if it is actually a legit genre of music, or just a strange meme of some sort.

Either way, Hong Kong Express is here and This is very fucking real (sentence construction entirely intended). Hong Kong Express is easily one of the more ethereal and ambiance-based vaporwave artists I have come across. It is almost as if this entire thing was designed to be consumed in the small hours; it is simultaneously relaxing yet uplifting to hear. Strongly recommended listening!

Big Grams - Big Grams

Big Grams is an extremely refreshing mash up of synth-drenched electronica pop and hip hop. Initially, I had a reaction of "holy shit, this sounds like Lorde collaborating with Run The Jewels!", and rather ironically, considering how ridiculous that comparison is, Run The Jewels pop up on track six here. Anyway, Big Grams is actually New York dream pop duo Phantogram but fronted by Outkast nutter Big Boi. And, not to mince words, its fucking fantastic. 

First off, its decent pop music, before Big Boi is even involved. I need to get Phantogram wrapped around these 'ere lugholes. But, with the super slick flow piled on top like thick honey over a perfect set of pancakes and bacon (yeah, I went there fam) the balance of rap and pop is achieved. It is almost the zen of collaborations in this style, and it shits on every single worthless chart-topper than throws a rapper in as nothing more than just something to make the middle eight pass a bit faster. 

The only real let down is the final track, which has fairly uninspired contributions from Skrillex, a project that really should have stayed in 2012.

R10T33R - High Tech Wreck

High Tech Wreck is an electronic explosion of sound conducted in the grimmest and trve-est of ways possible for electronic music - in 8 bit sound blips, of course! All four tracks here have been painfully synthesized using the primitive sound forms, and actually make for some seriously interesting listening. It would possibly be a primitive and ham-fisted reviewing technique to make comparisons to Aphex Twin whilst talking about electronic music, but High Tech Wreck literally sounds like someone scooped out Richard D James' brain - like in Robocop 2 - and smashed it into a random 80s games console for a laugh. The resulting carnage would not be dissimilar to this, one would imagine; a detailed series of compositions of intense electronic programmery (is that even a word?).

The intelligence and attention to detail here is impeccable. The production, despite being entirely constructed from the music equivalent of caveman building blocks - if you give or take a few added samples - is strong and clear, presenting a consistent and professional mix that does nothing to weaken the vibe created by the 8 bit noise. I guarantee this will be one of the most interesting things you've heard in a while, so give it a go?

Bestial Mouths - Heartless

Heartless is the most recent offering from bizarre, dark and menacing electronica group Bestial Mouths. Expect "darkwave" (the Youtube comments section just had a triple bypass with the use of this word) meeting ethereal pop in a world of decay, pain and seemingly endless reverb. The tracks do sound kinda similar however in a bizarre twist this only seems to cement the record together as a solid whole, rather than drive boredom into the heart of the listener. Expect Florence & The Machine meeting 2004-onwards-era Gary Numan in an abandoned underground car park. At points, in certain passages the record harks back to an undeniable influence from 80s synth-pop flamboyance such as that performed by Kate Bush, or perhaps more subtly David Bowie (on the part of Bestial Mouths' interpretation, of course).

Bestial Mouths have that strange mid-level appeal; weird enough to play fringe and underground festivals around the world, deep in the pockets of the twiddly mustache and APA drinking crowd, whilst at the same time possessing the catchiness that could easily point to a more mainstream success. Saying that, if you thought Lady Gaga was weird, artistic and expressive, this is probably not for you. 

Lorde - Pure Heroine

It's not that often that I usually listen to shit like this, but I burned this album when it first came out and it's just one of those things that's been stuck in my car since. My stereo broke a few months ago when I tried to spin a leaked copy of Swans' To Be Kind (that's what I get for pirating music, folks!*) but when my car went in recently to get a new starter motor all the electronics were reset, and it freed the stuck Swans disc, allowing me to return to my awful car listening. I found this Lorde album lodged conspicuously behind a copy of Dr. Dre's 2001, and all the memories and mediocre pop music came flooding back. The mirth!

*I bought the 2xLP, and have nearly every other Swans record in existence, before you fucking judge me for doing illegals ;)

Most of you probably know Lorde for being a silly out-spoken 17-year-old who talks a lot of shit about stuff that she actually doesn't know anything about (kinda like me, only I'm 25). Take away her daftly over-opinionated, sensationalist media-baiting crap, and she's a fairly talented girl with, no doubt, a long future in music ahead of her. Pure Heroine is a fairly minimal pop record, led entirely by Lorde's unusual vocal. It kinda sounds like if Lana Del Ray got her head outta her arse, stopped trying to sing like a man, and employed Gary Numan to do all her backing tracks.

As is normally always the case with up-and-coming artists signed to major labels, one can't help but speculate how different this would sound without massive boardroom pressure and a most-likely retardedly huge production budget. And for that reason, the link below is of a live performance from Lorde, which I believe does her more justice than any of the tracks on this record. All in all, it's not a bad CD, as far as mass produced pop goes, but it could be a lot worse. Favourite tracks: "Tennis Court", "Glory & Gore", "White Teeth Teens".

Check out the super-hipster on keyboards for extra lulz. 

Data Shit - Reconstruction Deformation

Now this is really nice - imagine combining the sounds of gabba techno drum programming (but slowed down a touch) with the random ambience of early Warp Records electronic music like The Aphex Twin. It's kinda like a drum'n'bassy Venetian Snares making sweet, sweet love to Optimus Prime, at varying BPM.

"Time Is A Disease" is a beast of an opener, with moody synths and epic piano lines, before it bursts this EP open with a flurry of garbled electronica and blasting 909 beats. "At Least We Have McDonalds" is a scatterfuck of a track, incorporating elements of dubstep into an already chaotic sound. "The Ghost Of My Girlfriend's House" is as close to straight-up Snares worship Data Shit can get, before closer "Hypertrophy" is a simmering mirage of operatic samples and grindcore-grade drum programming. What more do you need?

I've tried looking up more about Data Shit but have so far been unsuccessful. You can stream and download the entire EP over on Torn Flesh Records. 

Shpongle - Museum Of Consciousness

For me, Shpongle is the perfect music for the expansion of mind, body and soul; the perfect background noise for the ingestion of opiates, fungal hallucinogenics and dimethyltryptamine. However, even though I don't sit around fires chugging bowls of ayahuasca that often, I do feel that sometimes I am halfway there, thanks to Shpongle's ethereal "psytrance" (yes, that's a real genre) and its ability to take me other worlds. 

Museum Of Consciousness is apparently the final Shpongle album. If you are familiar with the group's earlier works, then what you can expect here is more of the same - in the greatest way possible. We're talking 9, 10, 11 minute trips into twisting, turning, lush musical worlds that are dripping in gorgeous instrumentation and driven by stoned yet purposeful beat programming. We're talking flutes, lutes, harps, synths, sitars. We're talking blips, blops, bleeps; whirls and whizzes. We are talking total clarity and immersion into the Museum Of Consciousness. 

The highlights for me are the two longest tracks; "How The Jellyfish Jumped Up The Mountain" and "The Aquatic Garden Of Celestial Delights". The former is a pacy, fluid journey through an audible hallucination, whereas the latter is a lurching, plodding epic of cataclysmal chill out proportion. Things get even weirder by "The Epiphany Of Mrs. Kugla", where the Shpongolians tread into territory that can only be described as a bombastic film score. I can conjure up swooping montages of a villain's lair; a damsel in distress, or a world gone to shit. And who is here to save us? Simon Posford and Raja Ram, most definitely. 

This thing is longer than 4 DMT trips. Think about that before you press play. 

Portishead - Portishead

I would probably have never listened to Portishead if it wasn't for the fact that their first two albums were already on my old computer when I bought it, back in 2009. They always seemed like something my mother would listen to, what with their shit band name and music video circulations on the Sky ClassicFM music channel. It wasn't until my appreciation for electronic music developed to such a degree that I could hear Portishead in a different way, and then, one day, with the iPod on random, I fell in love.

This is so laid back and chilled, yet so epic at the same time it really is a bit of an enigma. How is that even possible? Well, Portishead managed it. Ticking, soft trip-hop beats and sparse instrumentation is pretty much all that's going on here, complimented by one of the best female voices I've heard a long time. As a blue print for an entire record, this approach is extremely basic, but this self-titled record fails to bore me at any given moment. It is simply a magical record. The final track includes some fleeting male vocal contributions, but that's about as far as breaking the template goes!

I got this on vinyl for £12, from the Head chain in Bristol. Turn ting up!

Mortiis - The Grudge

Whilst this is entirely on the other end of the industrial metal spectrum that I prefer not to get too close to, The Grudge was one of favourite records as a teenager. Over the last few years I have learned that there is a lot more to industrial than crappy guitars layered with crappy dance music and ripping off old Nine Inch Nails tracks, but that's another story. Mortiis' first Era 3 release was a puzzling mix of awkward techno and fuzzy metal, not a hundred million miles away from The Smell Of Rain, but so far removed from any of his Era 1 music you'd swear it was a totally different musical genius at the helm. Nope. Mortiis is one of those artists that has evolved in sheer leaps over the last 20 years.

I like The Grudge, don't get me wrong, but compared to The Smell Of Rain before it, it pales in comparison. The Smell Of Rain had such a distinct and wonderful sound, but The Grudge, whilst it has it's moments of sheer brilliance, is for the most part clumsy, badly mixed and lacking direction. It is equal parts amazing and awful. The over-all vibe is much more angsty and rougher around the edges (it's almost like this album should have been made first, and The Smell Of Rain should be it's more focused and chilled-out follow up) but some of my favourite Mortiis songs are on here. Opener "Broken Skin" sounds like it's been mixed by a 4 year old, but that doesn't stop it being one of the greatest Mortiis songs, writing wise. "The Grudge" is the song that got me hooked into this album with it's constant rotation on Scuzz TV; a clanking dancey nightmare that unfolds into some serious industrial metal heaviness.

 

The longest track here, "The Worst In Me" is a brooding nightmare of riffs and synths, and the first few minutes of "The Loneliest Thing" is by far the best shit on this record; it starts with a cool, semi-acoustic opening with resonant chords fighting over fluttering hi-hats, leading into some heavy drumming and haunting vocal performances. Sheer, sheer brilliance. Closing track "Asthma", is a quick nod back to the days of old, fading the record out with a couple of minutes of nothing more than meandering, hollow ambience. Bliss.

I originally bought this on CD with my first ever paycheck back in 2005 (who can forget what they bought with their first paycheck?). I got the "Mortiis pack" off Earache Records, which was the entire Mortiis-on-Earache discography and a crappy Earache t-shirt, but they made a mistake and sent me two copies of The Grudge (one being the special edition) instead of a copy of The Stargate, and I had to send it back for a swap. In hindsight, I probably should have said it was missing, flogged it, and got a free copy of The Stargate. Oh well. Recently the label have been selling these old vinyl copies of The Grudge off for £7 including postage, so I couldn't resist picking one up. I was hoping for the bright purple but I got the clear.

Check out "The Loneliest Thing" below; the first few minutes are just beautiful.

Daft Punk - Get Lucky

I am a total sucker for a catchy pop song. I guess you can't deny a well written song when you hear one, and Daft Punk, despite being awfully boring, have a rather large canon of well written songs. I think this might actually top "Aerodynamic" as my favourite Daft Punk tune, which has held the record for a very long time now; something like 13 years? Jesus fucking Christ I'm getting old (I really need to stop saying that; I'm only 24 for fuck sake).

I normally detest Pharrell Williams. I hate The Neptunes and their awful remixes, and I totally fucking detest N.E.R.D. with their try-hard bad boy rap shit. I gotta admit though I didn't know it was Pharell singing on this track until it was too late; the plant was seeded and the tune was being hummed before I knew what the fuck had hit me! Ha ha! But here, there's a certain soulfullness to his vocal performance that I can't really put my finger on. It might be the huge disco vibes giving this track a retro edge that's doing it; I'm not sure.

Anyway, the best thing about this song has to be the bass line, by a country mile! That bass rhythym is one of the best (not to mention funkiest) things that I have ever heard, so when I saw this (slightly over-priced) 12" in Spillers Records I couldn't resist purchasing this bastard. I'm gonna round this off now 'cos there's only so much I can really say about Daft Punk; I'll just let the music do the talking for me. Make sure you got the bass cranked all the way up on yer system for this one! Out on some crappy major label.