Sunday, October 26, 2008
After the goldrush #48
Michigan-based husband and wife duo Windy & Carl is back with a new full-length album entitled Songs for the Broken Hearted (Kranky) and it's once again overflowing with mood and atmosphere. Every epic track seems to be the perfect tool to seductively pull you into their world of densely layered guitar and keyboard drones. Underneath a glacial hurricane of zoned out distortion and shimmering, slow motion washes of guitar bliss this duo tears off lovely traces of melodies. In some cases we get stretched-out, barely distinguishable vocals on top but it doesn’t really matter if that’s the case or not as it’s all shockingly full of emotions and small unsettling details.
More on the same label comes from multi-instrumentalist Benoit Pioulard, the musical pseudonym of Thomas Meulch. Temper is his second full-length album and like the predecessor it displays a wide range of musical influences, covering just about everything from electronica and dream pop to drone and folk. The overall feel is the one of gentle acoustics crashing gracefully with rain-soaked beats, ending up sounding like a mixture of Fennesz and Brightblack Morning Light.
Chicago’s Chandeliers (Pickled Egg) takes somewhat related electronic influences in order to draw their aural portrait but overall this is more like an ever-shifting palette of contemporary electronic composition, psychedelicised jazz, krautrock and Eastern-influences melodies. Imagine a mix of Bablicon and Kraftwerk and you’re in the right, unclassifiable ballpark. If it’s pretty difficult to describe what Chandeliers are about it’s downright impossible to grasp the essence of Finnish Raamtulliset Miehet’s Paavalin Kirjeitä Tiitukselle (Louvaja). Ritualistic spoken word in Finnish gives way to hypnotic pulses, cheesy keybords, guitar feedback, toy instrumentation and whatever idea that pops up at that given second. The overall result is messy and from time to time quite interesting.
|
Michigan-based husband and wife duo Windy & Carl is back with a new full-length album entitled Songs for the Broken Hearted (Kranky) and it's once again overflowing with mood and atmosphere. Every epic track seems to be the perfect tool to seductively pull you into their world of densely layered guitar and keyboard drones. Underneath a glacial hurricane of zoned out distortion and shimmering, slow motion washes of guitar bliss this duo tears off lovely traces of melodies. In some cases we get stretched-out, barely distinguishable vocals on top but it doesn’t really matter if that’s the case or not as it’s all shockingly full of emotions and small unsettling details.
More on the same label comes from multi-instrumentalist Benoit Pioulard, the musical pseudonym of Thomas Meulch. Temper is his second full-length album and like the predecessor it displays a wide range of musical influences, covering just about everything from electronica and dream pop to drone and folk. The overall feel is the one of gentle acoustics crashing gracefully with rain-soaked beats, ending up sounding like a mixture of Fennesz and Brightblack Morning Light.
Chicago’s Chandeliers (Pickled Egg) takes somewhat related electronic influences in order to draw their aural portrait but overall this is more like an ever-shifting palette of contemporary electronic composition, psychedelicised jazz, krautrock and Eastern-influences melodies. Imagine a mix of Bablicon and Kraftwerk and you’re in the right, unclassifiable ballpark. If it’s pretty difficult to describe what Chandeliers are about it’s downright impossible to grasp the essence of Finnish Raamtulliset Miehet’s Paavalin Kirjeitä Tiitukselle (Louvaja). Ritualistic spoken word in Finnish gives way to hypnotic pulses, cheesy keybords, guitar feedback, toy instrumentation and whatever idea that pops up at that given second. The overall result is messy and from time to time quite interesting.
|
