Sunday 29 December 2013

6&8 + Day Before Us - May Propre Fable, un Dimanche

sometimes, music stumps me.

basing my output on my ability to put my own thoughts, feelings and opinions into words, being stumped leaves me feeling rather redundant.

and mostly I tend to feel this way towards music when I feel that my own words will lessen the true experience of just listening.

this is certainly the case in point with 'May Propre Fable, un Dimanche', a startlingly ethereal experimental soundscape that shifts and mutates from dreams to nightmares within a heartbeat, played out across sonic environments that at first seem unthreatening, giving way to my own very human instinct of feeling unsettled by the sounds that I am surrounding myself with, and ultimately wondering if I can even bare to carry on listening, as the whirlpool of emotions dredged up across the space of a few minutes cause such a drastic reaction to the audio atmospherics.



and even putting aside the music, for now, let's focus on the jarring, creepy vocal jaunts that are strewn across the sparse thirty six minute running time, turning simple statements, sentences and facts into mantras that echo like a horror movie, an unemotional delivery that means nothing, yet left to our imagination, could mean anything.

there is power in the art on display here, exemplified in the fact that the release is presented as a number of rooms, rather than tracks bearing pretentious titles, and in fact, the ever more pretentious framing device, and the collaborative efforts of 6&8 (spoken word fleshed out with ambient electronica from the UK) combining with Day Before Us (French semi-classical dark cinematic ambience) reeks of high brow pretentiousness and enthusiastic chin stroking, and if that is the reaction you elicit from this kind of art, then so be it... because art is made to produce reactions, differing from person to person.

and art is made to be experienced, throwing my wayward attempt at a review into disarray, even I myself throughout the course of writing this have pondered how so much of what I have written could be perceived as negative, yet here is a collection that I have enjoyed.

'May Propre Fable, un Dimanche' by 6&8 + Day Before Us 
is available via Auditory Field Theory


Tuesday 24 December 2013

Tellison -Snow

is it really the most wonderful time of the year?

whether it is trawling around shops, numbed by the hordes of debilitating and directionless consumers serenaded by an onslaught of Slade, Wizzard and Wham, or being reminded that all is not well in your world whilst the universe at large seems to be experiencing warm fuzzy feelings of togetherness.



Tellison's Christmas single arrives as a poignant message and stands for a noble cause, delivering their melancholic indie-janglings as a fundraiser for the Campaign Against Living Miserably.

and it is spot on, not only sounding wistful in melody and charm, riding a foot-tapper of a rhythm, it also instills a heartwarmingly bleak plea to hold it together, pretend that everything is ok as presents are passed between family and friends and hold off the heartbreak until January.

it isn't a perfect solution, but in the spirit of the charity CALM, it is aiming to make it through what may already be a bad situation.

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Tayalarz vol.4: Moneke Sorrow

and so, December brings the year to a close

and with it comes the last Tayalarz mixtape of 2013

I must admit that the musical journey we shall be taking together in this last month of the year is possibly a journey that will take you deep into the depths of the human soul, yet is a treacherous and unrelenting path to take 

It starts as many of my December compiled mixtapes do, with a rather folky toe-warmer of a track, best enjoyed by a fireside in a comfy chair with a large whisky, but don't forget, that it is a cold world out there

a cold world reflected in a series of uncompromising beat driven tracks that carry the harsh nature of a bitter northerly wind as it cuts through you to your bone, chilling your insides, so hunker down, tune in and chill out to the latest monthly mixtape

























as with all previous mixtapes, these tracks have all been sourced for free, either via bandcamps, blogs or facebook, and the track listing below tells you exactly where I handpicked these gems from, and joining the Tayalarz family for the next three months is cover designer, Ted Joyce, gracing our mixes with his talents

1.  Vikesh Kapoor - Bottom of the Ladder (available via Mad Mackerel)
2.  Ghost and Gale - Wicked Heart (available via Turntable Kitchen)
3.  The Casket Girls - Same Side (available via Turntable Kitchen)
4.  SZA - ICE.MOON (available via Consequence of Sound)
5.  Justin Bieber - Hold Tight (Adam Snow Late Night Edit) (available via Ear Buddy)
6.  Tabloid - Voyeur (available via Little Indie Blogs)
7.  Moon Bounce - Marvellous Beast (available via The Key)
8.  Wiley - Born in the Cold (Mr Mitch remix) (available at Surviving The Golden Age)
9.  Keenya - Behind Doors (Winter Son's Helpless Room Remix) (available via Acid Ted)
10. TasseomancyHeavy Sleep (Maya Postepski Remix) (available via I Vacation In Your Hell)
11. King Krule -Cementality (8pm remix) (available via Winnie Cooper)
12. Federico AubeleSomewhere Else feat. Melody Gardot (available via KEXP)


In the tracklisting above are links to the artist's bandcamp/soundcloud/website if you click on their name, and clicking on the track name or blog link will direct you to where I originally encountered their music, good luck hunting it all down...