Listening to Dan Deacon is a tour of what can happen when the computer is played as an instrument rather than a correcting tool for voice and techno. While the old school of music wax nostalgic for a time when…
Album Review: DJ Shadow – “Our Pathetic Age”
DJ Shadow is one of the indisputable masters of electronic music. His 1996 breakout Endtroducing….. is still a landmark in creative sampling, a dizzyingly dense collage of esoteric musical references, comedy skits, interviews, and Twin Peaks clips. It’s still my…
Album Review: Hot Chip – “A Bath Full of Ecstasy”
Hot Chip have always had a streak of violence in them, most memorably in the title track of The Warning which warned: “Hot Chip will break your legs/Snap off your head/Hot Chip will put you down/Under the ground”. Of course,…
Album Review: The Chemical Brothers – “No Geography”
In their awesome 90s run, The Chemical Brothers revitalised The Beatles’ Revolver for the techno age and hence turned their newfound genre, big beat, into every rock n’ roll fan’s favourite type of electronic music. Psychedelia, Kraftwerk, Britpop, folk, hip-hop, and many…
Album Review: The Prodigy – “No Tourists”
Big, stupid beats have been this group’s speciality ever since The Fat of the Land managed to erase the memory of the multilayered Music for the Jilted Generation for an entire new generation of fans. Which is not to be…
Album Review: Aphex Twin – “Collapse EP”
4 years after Aphex Twin returned from a 13-year hiatus that did his music wonders, this EP continues a run of EPs and Soundcloud releases that have shown a renowned pioneer fighting for, and earning, the respect and attention of…
Album Review: Johnny Jewel – “Digital Rain”
Producer and composer Johnny Jewel’s latest album Digital Rain feels simultaneously like something intricate and delicate, and something that he finished over the course of a weekend. Of course both of those traits can coexist, but there’s something about this…