Thursday 22 September 2011

An Album Review: I Break Horses "Hearts"

I admit that the regularity of my writing has somewhat plummeted in these last few weeks. I blame it on the fact that I like a good party from time to time, so celebrated my 21st in identical fashion. Besides the obvious showering of birthday presents, cake and alcohol, one of the best things about it being your birthday is that you have complete control of what music gets blasted through the speakers. All night long and into the early hours. As the Churchill Bulldog says, "Ohhhh yes!".

Now, I’m a very calm person (most of the time). I can’t help it if I enjoy down-tempo songs with chilled beats and sexy vibes. I have a little bit of a tendency to favour more somber tracks, so thought it would be in the best interest of everyone to perhaps find something new, loud and delightfully upbeat.

I Break Horses are a Stockholm-born duo formed in 2008 consisting of Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck. Their newly released 2011 album Hearts was decidedly going to be the music I would be sipping birthday Cava to. This album is a pretty decent pay off, as I’m a rather big fan of the shoegaze and dreampop genres that I Break Horses greatly incorporates while merging these influences with favorable buoyancy, making Hearts feel distinctively indie at times.



I Break Horses focus greatly on dreampop vibes and electronic synths, ultimately leaving me with the impression that multiple layers and generous use of texturing seem to be the key to malevolent ethereal brilliance in mainstream shoegaze. There’s a strange, but enchanting mixture of artistic influences to their sound, stemming from the more obvious angelic characteristics of M83, Animal Collective, Beach House and many other contemporary shoegaze music groups to a more traditional indie-rock feel through their unique embodiment of occasional guitar riff simplicity. The aural combination of these polar opposites feel natural and composed with ease, while an upbeat kick of imperturbable subtlety merges together their contrasting sounds.
           
The first thing that I noticed after the initial wall of airy electronic immersion was the startling, uncanny resemblance that the vocals share with Brian Aubert of the Silversun Pickups. It’s an unexpected comparison and a boldly made one nonetheless, but if you take a listen to Wired (3rd track off Hearts) you’ll hear what I mean. It’s definitely safe to say that the delicate, airy voices that sing above treble-pitched drones and distorted electronic experimentation are a growing trend and nearly iconic within the current ambient-incorporated music scene.

Thursday 8 September 2011

Album Review: Young Galaxy - Shapeshifting

I'm ashamed. It's been quite some time since I last updated. Too long, in fact. Like a rain drought that stubbornly refuses to quench the thirst of desperate crops. Ha. I wish I was important like rain. Damn these delusions of grandeur.

Anyway, a little aural escapism should do me some good. I need a break from the big bad world, and no abstract fills the void like the safe-house of music.

Another Canadian group for my liking! This is Vancouver's Young Galaxy, and I actually discovered this band pretty soon after my explosive obsession with Austra (once again, I emphasize my appreciation to Last.fm).  After beating out the first initial impressions of their 3rd album, Shapeshifting (2011) from "ooh!" to "hmm" as the album plays through, I've decided that Young Galaxy have become quite pleasing to my ears, and have grown a fondness for their interesting style and timbre of music.


Now at first, you may feel as though a lot of the songs off Shapeshifting are dance tracks that have been tended to with warm, damp cotton wool. I mean that in the best sense, because although this album feels energetic and inviting, their tempo isn't agile enough for you to go all out with your groove on. With complex bass lines and rhythms that play a prime role in their tunes, there's a great deal of generic exploration, and you should look out for the experimentation with bells and triangles throughout their songs that play on the ethereality that fuels their dream-pop vibe. There's a definite layered concoction of different musical styles coming through in Shapeshifting however, with a mixture of synth-pop reverbs and effects with indie-rock guitar riffs, and even a positive conflict with a wee bit of jazz reminding me of Sade - but this can be rooted down to Catherine McCandless creamy yet forceful vocals. Just to further add to this bizarre but brilliant combination of sounds, there's a clear incorporation of tropical drum cadence - especially in songs like "Cover Your Tracks" which are joyfully celebrated through Shapeshifting being produced by Studio's D. Lissvik.