Dance/Electronic The Beats

MUSIC REVIEWS
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DID YOU KNOW? Severed Heads sampled readings by UK crime writer and broadcaster Edgar Lustgarten on their hit Dead Eyes Opened.
Win a copy of In Our Heads at www.stack.net.au
FEATURE ARTIST
Dance/Electronic
Doug Wallen dances with himself.
Hot Chip In Our Heads
Various: Headspace: A Tribute to Severed Heads
There’s been a smirking quality to Hot Chip in the past. But as
2008’s Made in the Dark and 2010’s One Life Stand explored the
complexities of love with more nuance and sincerity, the London boys
have emerged as shrewd romantics without losing their command of
textured electronics. This fifth album goes further, integrating dance and pop elements
with meaningful lyrics more naturally than ever. Hot Chip aren’t just finding love on the
dance floor, but studying it and sharing their findings. Ballads Look at Where We Are,
Always Been Your Love and Let Him Be Me prove much deeper than most, while How
Do You Do? is the kind of sophisticated bubblegum anthem you’re sure you’ve heard
somewhere before. There’s not one song that stands out as much as the previous
two albums’ title tracks, but overall everything
is firmer and more durable. Yet there’s still room
for experimenting. In between its opening synth
squishiness and closing funk overtures, Now There
is Nothing is appropriately diffuse. Ends of the Earth
has the urgent lope of a sci-fi film score, and lead
single Night and Day is all R&B-informed sass. Hot
Chip just keep evolving. Domino/EMI
Nic Fanculi Balance 021
FEATURE ARTIST
Radio Salone
Seven years after their introduction in a documentary of the same name,
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars explode onto their third album. Made in
Brooklyn with all the warmth of vintage gear, Radio Salone was produced
by Victor Axelrod (Sharon Jones, Easy Star All-Stars). It’s a busy affair, with vocals in six
languages and as splashed with melody as it is rich in rhythm. Reggae and soul collides with
various African music amid a joyous vibe, complete with searing organ solos and sudden
ecstatic woops. Even goofier moments like Big Fat Dog are irresistible. Cumbancha/Fuse
Dan Rule is a writer, publisher, art critic and total hip hop fanatic.
If one quality envelops R.I.P.’s entirety, it is depth. It may seem an abstract
assertion, but spending time amid this cloud of opaque layers, shuddering
subterranean movements and flashes of glittering light, it’s hard to argue
with. The sequel to the brilliantly arcane dance gestures of 2010’s Splazsh,
the third album proper from Darren Cunningham (aka Actress) sees the young Wolverhampton
producer un-tether, transmute and ultimately transcend anything he’s managed thus far. For
much of its hour-long course, R.I.P. might be framed as ‘ambient’. Slathers of synth and bass
lurk in the pit of the frequency range, while dense mists of static and textural granules drift
and swirl above. But there is structure, rhythm and form here, or at least an evocation of it.
Tree of Knowledge crackles and shatters like tectonic plates; the muffled rhythmic abstractions
and dystopic synth lines of Raven feel like an updated Autechre; Jardin
is a haunting lament, its hush of static encroaching on a plodding
tonal motif and a glimmering piano coda. By the time Actress
finally drags us onto the dance floor – first via the lurking tonal
pulse of Caves of Paradise, before exploding into the electric
garage/Detroit techno mash of The Lord’s Graffiti – R.I.P. has
taken us somewhere so indefinable, so otherworldly that it’ll be
impossible to forget. This is huge. Honest Jon’s/Fuse
Ryat Totem
The work of Philadelphia-raised multi-instrumentalist, producer and vocalist Ryat
occupies an intriguing space. A recent signee to Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint,
her debut long-player Totem swivels and squawks between clusters of off-kilter
beats, ethereal vocal husks and avant-symphonic instrumental flourishes. It’s as
gorgeous as it is grit-scarred, gravitating to the pull of Mira Calix’s esoteric electro wanderings as
closely as that of the stuttering rhythms of the LA beat scene and the lush abstract orchestrations of
the Joanna Newsom ilk. Perhaps the key notion here is tension. For every lucid songwriterly gesture,
Totem unravels into arcane electronic weirdness. It’s all the better for it. Brainfeeder/Inertia
st93_098-099_MUSIC-DanceElecBeatPop.indd 1
Manhood
“It’s only me/Who were you expecting?” sings Melbourne electro-pop
oddball Muscles on his follow-up to 2007’s Guns Babes Lemonade.
These are unashamed club anthems with a subversive and at times
paranoid edge, and Muscles’ abrasive gasp still contrasts nicely with the
gleaming electronics around him. But that pounding dance backdrop can feel one-note, with
Manhood proving uneven. For all the rubber-band snap of Boys Become Men and the weird
asides of Girl Crazy Go, tracks like Heatwave, Brainfreeze and Koala wind up on the sillier
side of his over-the-top shtick. Modular/Universal
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Actress R.I.P
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Muscles
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars
Over two discs, UK house producer Nic Fanciulli proves his sure grip on
both tight repetition and sultry bliss. The first blends up to three tracks
at a time, but no matter how ambitious his juggling, the field never feels
cluttered. And amid the slippery dance directives, Fanciulli zeroes in on
vocal refrains to make the most of them. Culled from his own Saved Records, the second is
just as smoothly focused. He nurses an unexpected bass wobble at times, though, and his
layering always teases out something new from the source material. Balance/EMI
The Beats
Who better than Australian collective Clan Analogue to pay
tribute to Severed Heads? The Sydney pioneers blended synth-pop and
industrial with dark techno over three decades, and here they get reinterpreted by their diverse acolytes. The pop element is undeniable, from
Philosophy of Sound’s Ugliest Twenties to Valley Forge’s Twenty Deadly Diseases, but so is
the eeriness of Actual Russian Brides’ disturbed Kittenette and Clone’s controlled All Saints
Disco. Scanner relishes the deadpan lyrics of Adolf A Karrot?, while Inflatable Voodoo Dolls
throw themselves bodily into Big Car. And so the mood swings continue. Clan Analogue/MG
Chasm This is How We Never Die
Sydney producer Chasm has managed to pepper new record This is How
We Never Die with a clutch of revered MCs. Detroit rhyme-slayer Guilty
Simpson spits verses alongside Melbourne underground king Brad Strut, and
Bronx legend A.G. bounces off Adelaide battler Delta. Canberra’s Hau burns
up a funk-driven jam alongside BlakTwang, and NY rapper Vast Aire unfurls characteristic
idiosyncrasies over eerie horns and trickling keys, with Dialect in tow. It doesn’t get much
better than King Pin Shottas, with Guilty, Hau and Mdusu trading barbs over a rugged chunk
of boom-bap. Chasm may keep some lofty company, but he’s up to the task. Obese
Bang On! (Sic)
The fuzzed-out guitar lament that opens the debut from young Liverpool
firebrand Elliott Egerton (aka Bang On!) gives few hints as to what
kind of mind-bending, ear-bashing, bass-thumping action is in store on [Sic].
Unleashing raw, gnawing rhymes over filth-strewn productions, Bang On!
lives up to his name on this rugged joint. Cuts like Suttin Like That and ‘ands ‘igh shudder
with tectonic bass frequencies, skittering, grimy beats and cyclonic rhyme schemes, while
Got It and Munnys see Bang On! rip holes in crunching boom-bap. It’s unrelenting: this isn’t a
classic album, it’s unequivocal, from a beastly young rapper. Lock your doors. Ninja Tune/Inertia
Various Artists
Original Raw Soul III
Munich isn’t the first place to spring to mind when we think about hard funk
and soul. But, thanks the various incarnations of Jan and Michael Whitefield,
the German city has a rich history of rugged, rustic, body-rocking funk.
Original Raw Soul III is the first compile in nearly 15 years to cherry-pick from their various funk
and soul projects. It’s worth the wait. There’s the nimble flute tipples from Karl Hector, the hard
breaks of the Poets of Rhythm, the rugged keys and soaring harmonies of New Process and the
alien funk of Mercy Sluts. The story of soul continues to evolve. Now Again/Fuse
JUNE 2012 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifionline.com.au
6/06/12 5:24 PM