Archive for the ‘Music Reviews’ Category

Messageboards are about to get flamed with heady dispute by communities over a general lack of taste displayed by the unpaid writers that staff and propagate music blogs and websites. Well, though I’ve not heard every album released this year, I’ve heard a lot. My shortlist went from 50 to 40 to 33 (yeah, that was weird), before I finally settled on 30 and one honourable mention.

I was never going to attempt to put these in numberical order as they all have their place in their own genre, and they’re all brilliant. So, starting with the first 10 (I’ll release 10 a week), here we go:

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“I hated being an outsider as a little kid, but now as an adult I hate nothing more than fitting in,” comes the rap on ‘Hater’, thus concisely summing up the fundamental sentiment that drives the conviction of Stevie Dickhead’s Stig Of The Dump. Part self, part alter ego, Stig comes filled with negative self-esteem issues, and a host of wry responses. Fuelled by hate, drugs and cheap alcohol, he’s like a British Eminem with less muscle tone, and an internal affiliation with Islamic MC, Brother Ali, but without the religion.
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What do Katie Price, Hillary Clinton, and John F. Kennedy have in common? Well, they’ve all had books written by people other than themselves. Ghostwriting’s been going on for centuries. Even a musical legend like Mozart ghostwrote music for his rich patrons. That’s not to compare Wrongtom to Mozart, of course.

After reworking parts of Roots Manuva’s Slime and Reason some two years ago, Wrongtom has been brought in by Big Dada to expand on that disc and dip into Rodney Smith’s full discography. The album’s content is reflected by its wonderful artwork which is handcrafted by Tony McDermott: the designer behind many of the illustrations on London-based reggae label, Greensleeves.

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Terry Riley’s In C (1964) is a curious piece of experimental noise consisting of 53 musical phrases that exist for no specific length of time as defined by its composer. It’s a pretty remarkable piece of noise that brings immediately to mind Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians, but Riley’s piece is altogether more obtuse and rustic. Though Riley suggested the pieces be simultaneously and repetitively played by a minimum 35 musicians, it’s been performed by as many as 100. According to Wikipedia, this makes In C  ”a semi-aleatoric musical piece,” which basically means that it’s mostly without structure.

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Oreos. Tasty chocolate biscuit treats sandwiching vanilla cream. Delicious as a snack, but overwhelming when taken – like anything – in abundance. Oreos can be eaten in many ways – you may have seen the adverts demonstrating the versatility of the biscuit.

Oriol Singhji, however, is a London-based producer signed to Planet Mu. ‘Night And Day’ is his debut release and it tastes remarkably unlike an Oreo. I know because I tried sandwiching the two records together with a delicious homemade vanilla icing and suffered for it. The record should come with a warning.

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Lorn – ‘Nothing Else’ Album Mix by BRAINFEEDER

Sometimes, an album doesn’t need a 500 word review.

As the World Cup shines its bright, burning light down on Africa, football frenzy grips the planet in a clutch of patriotism, casual racism and animated passion. It also means that suddenly, everything is themed ‘African’. Yes, with ‘African style’ barbeque packs on sale at butchers, Vuvuzelas widely available on the streets of South West London, and African music blaring out of Starbuck’s coffee shops across the land – all eyes are gazing upon this vast continent enveloped by a media frenzy that focuses on the struggle and plight of the sporting nations and people of South Africa.

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In the mid ’90s, UK hip-hop rose to the top of the underground sound, tying in neatly with smoky trip-hop and dusty breakbeats. Messily parcelled, the sound was never in danger of breaking into the mainstream, but it did provide a path for traditional MCs – one that ran alongside the hyped-up nature of  Drum n’ Bass and Garage.  As those two genres gave way to Grime and Dubstep, the MCs’ style remained mostly unchanged, but it was that music that popped through the underground and was eagerly swept up by the mainstream. Traditional UK Hip-Hop, meanwhile, stayed underground.

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There is something about a hand muting vibrating strings on an acoustic guitar that has left me unable to think of anything other than Extreme’s tawdry ’90s ballad ‘More Than Words’. So it is to my unmistakably mild discontent to hear The Alps’ latest album open with ‘Drop In’ which features that agonisingly percussive palm slap throughout their otherwise dreamy, arpeggiated landscape.

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