Balam Acab - 4 Songs

This is a titchy compilation of two Balam Acab releases, a self-titled one and Conscious

chill downtempo dubsteppy goodness

Where the fuck is everyone?

Pictured above: me, looking for everyone.

The Men - Leave Home

Holy shoegazing punx hardcore just got interesting. I really hope more hardcore bands take a leaf out of The Men's book in the future because it really is a breath of fresh air to see them try something a little different. This is rad. That's the word that comes to mind. Rad. People should use that word more often without trying to be ironic. Leave Home seems like a logical progression from their noisier previous release Immaculada, seeing the band focusing more on the less conventional parts of their sound and with great success. I think it's way more punx to play whatever the fuck you want as opposed to the same rehashed hardcore everybody else has been playing for years. The Men are more punx than you. All of you. Deal with it.

Leave Home

Grouper - A I A

Another wonderful release courtesy of Liz Harris this year. While I'm not feeling this quite as much as her previous output, Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, it's still a very solid two LPs worth of dreamy, ambient bliss. I can only see this growing on me in the future so perhaps it'll come to rival her previous release in my eyes, who knows? Well worth a listen if you're a fan of all things chill. However if all you listen to is tough guy hardcore to make up for your raging insecurities concerning your potentially questionable masculinity this may not be for you. It's okay to let your sensitive side take over sometimes though. It's not gay. Unless it is gay, but that's cool too. I mean you could totally get married in NYC now. What a wonderful world we live in.

Dream Loss
Alien Observer

Giles Corey - Giles Corey

I've been listening to very little other than this album recently and I can't quite pinpoint what about this I find so enthralling. There's just something here that keeps me coming back for more of this gloomy, lo-fi, folky, ambient, inane genre tag, so and so forth piece of awesome. It's the solo project of one Dan Barrett of Have A Nice Life fame, who are without a doubt one of my favourite bands, so this was always going to be brilliant. It comes highly recommended regardless, provided you're not averse to a rather melancholic, depressing 56 minutes ahead of you.

Giles Corey

Portishead - Roseland NYC Live

Portishead absolutely kill it live on this release. It's arguably more moving than any of their studio recordings and is definitely aided by the inclusion of an orchestra, though it's Beth that really takes the metaphorical cake, she's incredible on here. If you call yourself a Portishead fan and don't have this already, get it asap.

Roseland NYC Live

P.S. I'm back, did you miss me? Nope? Yeah, fuck you too. I have nothing to do until October now so expect more posts from me. Joy!

Autechre - Confield

By becoming even more detached, mechanical, cold, and uninviting, Autechre somehow became even more interesting.

One of their best.


Confield

[Post-foetus] - The Fabric

Ardent (hah, yeah right) followers of this blog will have seen the Baths album I posted up quite awhile ago. Had you downloaded it, you would have heard one of the better albums released last year. His songwriting is so inspired, and the textures he achieves require successive listenings, which is definitely a good thing considering how addictive his blend of glitch, ambient and hip hop is. So here's [Post-foetus], his first project. Yes it's good. No it's not as good as Baths. Yes you should get it.

Iniquity - Serenadium

A wise man once said, 'don't judge a book by its horribly cheesy CGI cover'.

Danish band Iniquity released this back in '96, a time when all that quality old school dm was drying out a little bit, and new trends were starting up. This album is a perfect representation of that time, as it's still got a little of that old school vibe, but is leaning towards the more modern brutal and technical dm camps.

Something for every dm fan here, no excuses for not checking it out.


Serenadium