Music
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We didn’t know what to expect from the solo debut record from Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke. What we didn’t expect was what a warm, elegant and enjoyable record The Eraser would be. Wit...read more
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Dark, brooding and intense, the Knife’s Silent Shout combines the singing of Bjork with the heavy synth arrangements of a Giorgio Moroder or Depeche Mode. Brother and sister Olof Dreijer and ...read more
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As Whitman walked around the titular city with his hearing nearly gone, he says everything suddenly clicked. The result is this record, a live show featruing one 41-minute track awash in guitars an...read more
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One of the most daring, original and startling electronic albums of the year. Here’s the stunning debut from Britain’s Burial, ingeniously combining myriad genres without sounding clutt...read more
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Three songs: “Boy from School” to “Colours” to “Over and Over” – perhaps the best 1-2-3 punch in all of music this year. It’s the centerpiece of Hot Chip’s...read more
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It will come as no surprise that many songs from the 1980s have not held up well over the years (“China Girl,” anyone?). But great works of art don’t age, and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts sounds r...read more
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Finally, the earliest works of the brilliant minimalist techno artist Ricardo Villalobos are released on a sinlge CD. Salvador compiles tracks from when Villalobos was on the Frisbee label from 199...read more
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A neat idea: two discs, one featuring Four Tet remixing the likes of Radiohead, Madvillain, Aphex Twin and Beth Orton, the second with other artists remixing him. If you want any indication of how ...read more
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Another breathtaking album from one of electronica’s true giants, Harmony in Ultraviolet, the sixth proper solo record from Tim Hecker, dazzles on numerous levels. It’s an electronic al...read more
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Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson has worked with some of the more adventurous rock and electronic musicians, including Barry Adamson, Pan Sonic, and members of fellow countrymen Sigur Ros. Now ...read more
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Adorning the front of our store right now in the form a light box is Christian Fennesz’s electronic masterpiece, Endless Summer. It’s warm, inviting image of a sunset and the sea has be...read more
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Yes, techno has its detractors, and not without some justification, but the Field is something different altogether. Axel Willner’s project has produced a softer edged yet universally catchy ...read more
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A superb record from electronica whiz Matthew Herbert, who here reveals a whole new side to his musical persona. Score is a compilation of Herbert’s soundtrack work over the years, and itR...read more
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Boards of Canada’s groundbreaking record is noted as one of the best electronic releases of 1998. Often compared to the early works of Aphex Twin and Autechre.read more
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This is one of the most beautiful and shattering records of the year. The first full-length collaboration between electronic frontiersman Christian Fennesz and prolific composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, C...read more
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Super Furry Animal’s singer Gruff Rhys and hip-hop producer Boom Bip gave us one of the year’s great party records, a deliciously nostalgic 1980s rock opera/concept album recounting the...read more
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Call this the year of the Crystal band: Antlers, Castles, Stilts. The fact that Crystal Castles share their name with an 1983 Atari arcade game and play keyboards using vintage video consoles sound...read more
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The masterful indie electronica of 2007’s EP Reset would have been a tough act to follow for anyone but Steven Ellison, a.k.a. Flying Lotus, a Los Angeles-based DJ, producer and electronic mu...read more
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This is Philip Jeck’s fifth solo album for Touch. Sand was recorded live in Holland and England in 2006/2007 and edited in Liverpool in January, 2008 using Fidelity record players, Casio SK k...read more
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Electronic music may not be known for tunes of Ramones-like brevity, but even the most ardent clubhound will be left a bit breathless after the knockout 30-minute opener (no, that’s not a mis...read more
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A long-overdue reissue of one of British turntablist Philip Jeck’s finest works, his third album, Stoke, from 2002. The record was made using Bush, Fidelity and Philips record players, a Casi...read more
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What a year for the UK artist known as Bibio, a.k.a. Stephen James Wilkinson. Not long ago he hovered just under the folktronica radar as a Boards of Canada acolyte. This year he jumped from Mush t...read more
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Sparklehorse always brought a touch of experimentalism to their indie-pop bona fides, so this inspired pairing with Austria’s electronic maestro Christian Fennesz is not as odd as it might seem. At...read more
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Brock Van Wey is better known (and more prolific) as a dub techno artist under his pseudonym, Bvdub. His first album under his real name is ambient of the most beautiful sort, awash in vast swells ...read more
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Kieran Hebden’s been so busy with mixes and his many collaborations with Steve Reid that it’s been five years since we last got a long-player from Four Tet. It’s front-loaded with vocal tracks, but...read more
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James Mercer of the Shins plus Danger Mouse: Okay then, what are your questions? Well, basically, all you want to know is, Does this pairing work? Yup. Danger Mouse’s skill as a producer, you...read more
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Me: longtime Caribou naysayer. Caribou: delivers Swim, the latest attempt by Dan Snaith to meld laptop means with pop ways. And you know what? I’m won over, to the point where I’m gonna...read more
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Steven Ellison, the artist known as Flying Lotus, was already widely praised for his 2008 album Los Angeles, but Cosmogramma is a jaw-droppingly awesome leap forward in imagination and creativity. ...read more
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If you're like me, then you took one look at this Canadian band's name a few years ago and dismissed them immediately as attention-hungry party-mooks. Well, as their third album, Latin, proves, the...read more
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The galvanizing Canadian noise-dance duo Crystal Castles is developing a saner, less abrasive side on its second album (which technically is self-titled, but since its first album, a collection of ...read more
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It can be hard to do this job when a band that has so thoroughly established a presence returns with an album on which little has changed. (Pity me, yes!) But on LP4 (which is a far better title th...read more
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While the experimental trio Emeralds has piles of small-run CD-r and cassette releases, each a snapshot of a particular moment in the Cleveland band's existence, we can best chart the group's cours...read more
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The 90s dance-music wave that made the Chemical Brothers worldwide stars has receded a bit (at least from its central prominence in indie music), so those not dedicated to the Chems (or their scene...read more
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Now this is a welcome return — the Books with their first proper album in more than five years! The Way Out will sound familiar to old fans; like all of the duo's recorded work, the only genre this...read more
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The age-old border between techno chill and pop-analog warmth has been breached once and for all on Matthew Dear's new opus, Black City. Granted, Dear is hardly new to this; he's been edging toward...read more
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Weird fact No. 1: The Age of Adz is Sufjan's first song-based studio album since Illinoise in 2005. Weird fact No. 2: The last word in the title is apparently pronounced "odds," although I wanted i...read more
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For my money, Tim Hecker is the best electronic composer today (especially now that Milton Babbitt is no longer with us), and his latest release, Ravedeath, 1972, once again shows the master in fin...read more
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This album does not fall under the rule of “remix albums are
superfluous and worse than the originals” because, despite what some people are
saying/writing, it is not a remix album -- at least no...read more
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Nicolas Jaar is a young electronic-music producer based in New York—so young, in fact, that he may not be able to get into the sort of clubs that would play his esoteric but sexy quasi-house tracks...read more
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Bibio released three albums during 2009, so the fact that he'd been quiet from then till now -- well, it felt like a long time, at least. One listen to Stephen Wilkinson's sixth Bibio album, t...read more
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What do you want to know about the physical object that is the new Radiohead album? Eight songs, a little under 38 minutes; The King of Limbs is pure Radiohead-style slipperiness, and we mean that ...read more
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Ah, that's more like it. It's been far too long since we've heard from Amon Tobin, but now that he's here, this sudden rash of humidity isn't bothering me so much anymore. Along with Aphex Twin, Au...read more
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What's a "mini-album"? In the case of Muzzle, the new Gonjasufi record (which has a sticker declaring it to be this odd format), it's evidence that 24 (and a half) minutes is enough time to flow te...read more
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