The self-styled lo-fi rebel hip-hop of Catherine Harris-White and Stasia Irons.
READ MOREIn life, we are often held back by limitations that are either of our own making or unjustly placed upon us.
With the frequency in which a new pop siren is rolled out by some label or another it’s always somebody else’s go.
READ MORE
|
Dear Reader
Idealistic Animals
[City Slang]7/10
|
In ‘Idealistic Animal’, Dear Reader – aka 28 year old Cheri MacNeil – has created a break-up record in an untraditional sense, that, rather then being a heart strung album of woe over the breakdown of a relationship with a person, is about a breakdown in religious belief.
Her loss of faith isn’t the only change to occur, either – MacNeil also separated from musical partner Darryl Torr for her sophomore album and she relocated from South Africa to Berlin. Regardless, these changes haven’t enticed her to rebel and seek a new artistic direction at all; they’ve steeled her to cleverly construct an album of folk-tinged art-pop that positively vibrates with character.
Some songs, such as the grandiose ‘Man (Idealistic Animals)’, will attract loose comparisons to flame-haired songstress Florence & The Machine, but on the whole Dear Reader spends her time residing in a different musical landscape far closer to the classy idiosyncratic pop of Feist, St Vincent and, on ‘Camel (Not Black or White but Camel), the lush melodies of Beach House. It mean ‘Idealistic Animal’ stands as a charmingly grown up record with a playful personality that’s worth checking out.
By Nathan Westley
Tags: Dear Reader
Not everyone has the option to release a grab-bag aggregation of offcuts, deleted singles and remixes before their first full-length debut.
More of a collective than a band, Breton emerged from a group of filmmakers, which goes some way to explain the erratic disposition of their music.
In life, we are often held back by limitations that are either of our own making or unjustly placed upon us.
Nick Cave isn’t a man who need repeat himself very often so when he asks for the stars to come out to play.
This marks something of a break up record for Julie Ann Baenziger. After the rather lovely debut, ‘Songs for the Ravens’, ‘Orangefarben’ feels like a second, prolonged diary entry.
The speed with which dance music currently mutates means that even relatively new acts like Simian Mobile Disco – their debut is less than five years old – feel like establishment figures.
Black Dice began their career as anarchic thrash noiseniks fifteen years ago, performing abrupt, aggressive music designed to piss people off.
The vocals on a record can draw a listener in, or repel them. It’s also utterly unpredictable how the sound of a person’s singing voice will affect you.
The idea of a tortured artist can be an attractive one, but sometimes artists suffer from too much; too many influences, too many layers and too many ideas.
Dirty Three return for their first album in seven years, and a most welcome return it is. Few people have the command over their instruments and self-honed sound quite like Dirty Three do.
This week we’ve been listening to new music from Mac DeMarco, The Magnetic Fields, Death Grips, Anywhere and Swim Deep [pictured].
LISTEN HEREThe latest manifestation of avant-garde purveyors Experimental Circle Club.
READ MORE
