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 21^st 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 (3^rd 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.

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.

Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

When I first discovered this band back in late 2008 (yes I did spend the first 18 years of my life beneath a rock), the first thought that crossed my mind was whether Mogwai knew the derogative nature of their title. It's a pretty sweet original name for a band nonetheless, but being a British expatriot who grew up in Hong Kong, I've always been fully aware of the (desensitized) term Gweilo which some locals refer to Westerners by; roughly translating from Cantonese to mean "foreign devil" or "ghost man". HOWEVER, after doing a bit of homework it turns out that the term Mogwai comes from the fictional furry creature from the Gremlins films. So a slap on the wrists, and shame on me for making such ignorant assumptions.

Anyway, this Mogwai is far from being fictional or furry. The Glaswegian five-piece released their 7th studio album Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will in February earlier this year, which is filled with tunes of the same delicate chaos as ever before. This most recent album continues to commemorate Mogwai's dynamical beauty that contrasts loud, thrashing distortion and drums against softer, more pensive sections of ambience that are impeccably free to be explored through their long-length tracks. While there is a darkness to their sound, Mogwai continue to give a sense of predetermined improvisation to their melodies as if telling an instrumental story that, without fail, leads to an orgasmic musical climax of emotional power that feels joyous and elegiac at the same. 

Courtesy of TLOBF

The Heart is a Drum Machine (2010)

I'm a bit of a factual enthusiast. Throughout the course of university life, many (well-spent) hours were filled with knitting (yeah, I know) and exploring cyberspace for enlightenment through documentaries. I mean it when I say that I'm an encyclopaedia of useless information - useless in the sense that it will only come to benefit me if humanity faces a New World Order, or when (I stress when) aliens take over the world- THEN I can turn around and shout "TO THE BUNKERS", with a smug expression on my face and a complete advantage over the rest of you sceptics. 

Anyway, had I known of this documentary before I wrote my dissertation (which happened to be on alternative representations of gender in music), I would have probably written it in celebration of this spectacular film. It's incredibly fascinating, and I recommend it to anyone who feels as passionately as I do about the power of music and the emotional grasp it has on so many of us. 

Released in 2010 and directed by Christopher Pomerenke, The Heart is a Drum Machine asks the supposedly straight-forward question "What is music?", evidently establishing how complicated in fact, a direct answer to this really is. Why is it that music has such a profound effect on people? It is easy to break down music as an organized choreography of sounds and vibrations, but there's a fundamental enigma in the extent of the emotional complexity music demonstrates on all groups of individuals - ranging from all cultures and backgrounds, to artists, performers, listeners and those who can't hear anything at all. 

A Different Kind of Fix - Bombay Bicycle Club

There's a definite sound to the current climate that is British indie music. It's a very distinct mix of indie meets pop meets rock, which subsequently meets contemporary-influenced folk, and ultimately leading to very bouncy musical composition of upbeat rhythms and twiddly guitar riffs, peppered with underlays of electronic effects. Bombay Bicycle Club have conquered that sound, and with the release of their third album A Different Kind of Fix, I can't help but feel a little disheartened by the overt similarities between this and their previous releases. However, what can be said is that the musical arrangement of this album has been clearly composed with love and an undeniable amount of effort. As recognizable with Bombay Bicycle Club, there's a brilliant fusion between folk-influenced guitar parts with a modest use of synthesizers that slide subtly behind their melodies and thicken the atmosphere that surrounds each track. 

Bombay Bicycle Club as seen on their Last.fm page

The first impressions I had for this album were particularly positive. The opening song, How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep cements the folkiness of this album, while the shaky vocals remind me of a more upbeat, rather happier Conor Oberst who's given in to the contemporary trend of electronic influences. The great thing is that this opening track is so different to their previous sound that when followed by Bad Timing, there's an admirable sense of change and distinction - particularly how this second track has more of a dreampop feel to it, drawing upon musical similarities to ethereal bands such as The Daysleepers and the likes.

Austra: An Overview

It's a marvellous feeling to stumble across an artist that you fall instantly in love with. It's exactly what happened to me this morning, when the wonderful music cataloguer Last.fm, provided me with my daily dose of artist recommendations of potential musical companionships. Thank you, Last.fm, for enlightening me with Austra.

For the avid listeners who enjoy expanding their musical horizons, this band deserves the opportunity to fill ear cavities with a taste of new wave electronica that feels heavy and light at the same time. The sound of Toronto-formed Austra, bears positive familiarity with artists such as Zola Jesus, Esben and the Witch, and The Knife through a contrast of intense melodies against powerful female vocals that although delicate, hold underlying energies that persistently threaten to break through. While this association may sound generalizing; the reality of this is that Austra sets itself apart from neighbouring artists with a uniquely tailored tone, as lead-vocalist Katie Stelmanis' classically-trained voice feels beautifully strained beneath the pressure of emotional retention.

Austra's Katie Stelmanis

The Newcomers: Man Without Country

Had I been already writing a blog in June, I'd have jumped straight from the gig in Cardiff to my laptop for immediate gushing and admiration for this band. Unfortunately I didn't, and with the terrible memory that I have, it has taken me a good summer to get round to writing so. But fear not, my little chickadees, as it has all come flooding back to me and boy - am I happy about it!

This band here is Man Without Country, who, alongside Crystal Stilts, were the supporters for headlining band Warpaint (hands down one of the best all-girl bands around at the moment by the waaay), and although I acknowledged their name on the posters, I was far from understanding the sheer power of the duo behind the band. Not only did the Warpaint gig introduce me to Man Without Country, but it also gave me the special privilege of experiencing the magic that this band evoke through their sound - and the surreal atmosphere they create when performing live.

Taken from their Official Site.
But it's pretty much how I remember the band looking too.