‘Monday? Innately awful. New BRAIDS? Ineffably brilliant. They’ve no need to make Amends for anything in particular, not least as the ringleader of the Montréal troupe Raphaelle Standell-Preston already has our album of the year thus far under her belt in the inscrutably excellent form of Blue Hawaii sophomore, Untogether. It’s an endeavour which has by now quite evidently had a not insubstantial impact upon her more widely renowned, and with that revered escapades alongside the blokes of BRAIDS, and I say blokes as opposed to guys as they’ve recently parted ways with onetime synth wiz Katie Lee. Though perhaps more pertinently, and it’s this shift in focus which really aligns Amends all the more acutely with Untogether as opposed to Native Speaker, they’ve ditched the guitars all but entirely. “It reflects where we have gone to as a human race in 2013 and our involvement with the iPhone and laptops and everybody being interconnected.” I’d move in an antithetical direction, and suggest that the current influx of electronic music is another drawback brought about by our insatiable craving for knowledge and with it the internet, though if it allows for Standell-Preston et al. to conjure the incredible swelling of Amends, well, that’s a vigorous tick in the pro column. Her vocal stilted and densely manipulated a little à la that of compatriot Claire Boucher, it’s musically blithe but so too slightly darker than their by and large lustrous début as the ensemble have quite patently taken cues from their work alongside London underground electronica producer Max Cooper. Mild imitation, flattery and all that, though the ineluctable truth is that however BRAIDS may line up these days, they’re continuing to pioneer and push the limitations both of themselves as beings, as well as their insentient banks of gadgetry. For rarely does such exclusively synthetic music sound as becomingly human as it indubitably does below…’
Amends is one of four tracks to feature on a forthcoming 12” EP out June 10th on Full Time Hobby.
Posts tagged Grimes.
‘For a pop troupe from Brooklyn, the bedazzling lights of just across the East River are perhaps all too obvious beacons to at least metaphorically grab at though with each recording they emit, NYC trio Little Daylight sound that bit more likely to go on to soar such great skyscraping heights soon enough. Name In Lights is their latest and as was the rambunctious stomp of Overdose, it’s an irresistible pop pearler – the type to have you swooning along lyric by lyric; line by line even from a flustered first play. Born of a humid swelter, a somewhat unorthodox conflation of influence permeates the comforting mugginess as it’s as though a refined Grimes one moment, a sultry TLC encomium another, and lucid Crystal Fighters eulogy come its lustrous middle eight lull. Yet it’s in no way derivative, and indeed sublime and appositely addictive as Overdose may well have been (and it quite incontrovertibly was) this one somehow betters it. It’s that bit more placid – the Williamsburg quietude to the bewildering bustle of Manhattan epitomised prior to – and approaches perfection itself, for off-kilt pop is rarely this acutely in sync with the ethos and feel of the keenly contemporary. This is the “glass flicker on the ceiling” and it’s a mesmeric one at that – one to have your gaze firmly transfixed skyward. And impeccable both in terms of composition and production, one senses it shan’t be long before Little Daylight are themselves inscribed in the stars above like a dernier cri constellation…’
‘With its lyrics of “confetti in your mouth” buoyed by a darkened synthwave that writhes grim as an eel in oil, Undream A Year – the preliminary peep into Montréal duo Valleys’ forthcoming sophomore, Are You Going to Stand There and Talk Weird All Night? – makes for a gloriously disorientating experience even from first play. Simultaneously recalling the misery intrinsic to Good News For People Who Love Bad News and the thrillingly shrill sterility of Cold Cave, there’s an appositely aloof charm to this so-called Desert Island Edit. “Can’t I dream of you?” Marc St Louis pleas crestfallen atop rolling undulations of modulating synthesiser and squalling distortion. It’s the sonic epitome of a nonexistent point in time at which the musical industrialisation of the ’80s intersects the epoch’s more shiny, happy pop fare that is then decelerated to a doleful gurgle like that of a 7” at a lethargic 33 revolutions per minute. It’s one that’ll surely up your pulse regardless, and rightly so for slow burn churning rarely sounded so ecstatic.’
‘“I’m a nice guy” he declares almost desperately, before proposing: “Hey girl, it’s me/ The one who wants to give you everything.” He this time recedes to the back of the stage, propping himself up provocatively atop a Vox amp like a curvaceous babe sprawled out upon a grand piano. Terrifying as the song itself is irresistible, he’s out of time and frequently out of tune though still it allures as do the luminous blues of a strip club to a drunk. It’s his most surreal, and with that farcical ruse and as he intones carefree: “Now there’s nothing left to fear” it becomes that bit more haunting still. Yet one senses he shan’t be loveless for too much longer and although he’s left his shoes, he’ll be back for those too, one suspects…’
Dots & Dashes review Arbutus darling Sean Nicholas Savage live in London.
