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Album Review
DIAGRAMS – BLACK LIGHT
Diagrams
Black Light
[Full Time Hobby]
6/10


It’s now so easy for bedroom musicians to produce electronic music that the sheer volume of the stuff makes it difficult for individuals to stand out from the masses. With Diagrams though, Londoner Sam Gender (in cahoots with a number of collaborators) has already nudged his head above the crowd.

‘Ghost Lit’, the opening track on this debut full-length, is low-key, slightly melancholy, but very pop, with slices of brightness permeating the haze. In fact, a minor chord sheen hangs over large chunks of this record, an indefinable sadness penetrating the beats. There are moments where ‘Black Light’ takes on the  feel of a Damon Albarn solo project;‘ Tall Buildings’, though, is a punchy, slightly funky effort that recalls Hot Chip, and elsewhere there are brief passages of euphoric crescendos of joy.

The standout track here is ‘Mills’, with a piece of mass-appeal lyrical clarity that will resonate with many (“It’s just a job, it’s not who I am”), while ‘Genders’’ obvious craft and creativity is tempered somewhat by one or two uninspiring, self-indulgent electronic wig-outs. Still, on the whole, ‘Black Light’ is a paradox worth buying into.

By Chris Watkeys

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TANLINES – MIXED EMOTIONS
Mixed Emotions
[Matador]
7/10

Not everyone has the option to release a grab-bag aggregation of offcuts, deleted singles and remixes before their first full-length debut.

BRETON – OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS
Other People's Problems
[Fat Cat]
9/10

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.

BLOOD RED SHOES – IN TIME TO VOICES
In Time To Voices
[V2]
8/10

In life, we are often held back by limitations that are either of our own making or unjustly placed upon us.

GRINDERMAN – GRINDERMAN 2 RMX
Grinderman 2 RMX
[Mute]
8/10

Nick Cave isn’t a man who need repeat himself very often so when he asks for the stars to come out to play.

SEA OF BEES – ORANGEFARBEN
Orangefarben
[Heavenly]
7/10

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.

SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO – UNPATTERNS
Unpatterns
[Wichita]
6/10

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 – MR IMPOSSIBLE
Mr Impossible
[Ribbon Music]
1/10

Black Dice began their career as anarchic thrash noiseniks fifteen years ago, performing abrupt, aggressive music designed to piss people off.

CLOCK OPERA – WAYS TO FORGET
Ways To Forget
[Moshi Moshi]
3/10

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.

GEMMA RAY – ISLAND FIRE
Island Fire
[Bronze Rat]
5/10

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 – TOWARD THE LOW SUN
Toward The Low Sun
[Bella Union]
8/10

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.