Mark Keane
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Dirty Beaches - Drifters/Love is the Devil
15 May 2013
A beguiling, globe-trotting, genre-spanning lo-fi album from Alex Zhang Hungtai
(Zoo Records) Alex Zhang Hungtai’s peripatetic lifestyle has taken him from Taiwan to Canada and then around the globe, and his lo-fi compositions as Dirty Beaches have a sense of dislocation that is both engaging and unnerving. There is no real sense…
A$AP Rocky presents debut album to the UK
15 May 2013
Controversial Harlem hip hop star gets seductive
The good thing about being a rapper is that when you do something idiotic, one of your peers will be along shortly with a different cock-up to steal the limelight. Take A$AP Rocky, the languid and beguiling New York MC and the recent furore over his…
Phoenix - Bankrupt!
19 Apr 2013
Post-breakthrough return is brash, unapologetic, full of pomp and self-assured tunes
(Atlantic) Bankrupt! begins with the brilliant bravura of ‘Entertainment’, a blitzkrieg of uptempo synths and guitars. It’s the kind of epic, contemporary new wave swagger that goes down just swell when performed in front of huge summer festival crowds.
James Blake - Overgrown
3 Apr 2013
Troubadour for the Burial generation revisits fey, enigmatic stylings on second album
James Blake provokes that kind of feverish excitement you’d mostly associate with the giddy hormonal urges of Beliebers, but instead he enchants the coolly-detached habitués of Boiler Room. It’s understandable. He is after all, an impossibly zeitgeisty…
Function - Incubation
14 Feb 2013
Expertly crafted exploration into the darker side of dance music
(Ostgut Ton) Sandwell District alumnus Dave Sumner, aka Function, goes on a solo odyssey, veering away from the techno stalwarts/defunct label with his debut foray into LP territory. Incubation sees him exploring his kinship with the darker side of…
Conquering Animal Sound - On Floating Bodies
13 Feb 2013
Duo's second album is full of daring and with gloriously rich palette
(Chemikal Underground) Glasgow-based Conquering Animal Sound’s mosaic aesthetic bristles with invention on this their second full-length effort. There are times here when the term, a cornucopia of sounds, seems like damning with faint praise; but…
Blue Hawaii - Untogether
17 Jan 2013
Beguiling début of somnambulant synths and layered vocals
(Arbutus Records) Blue Hawaii’s ethereal through-the-looking-glass world evokes a similar sense of place to the early work of Arbutus labelmate and fellow Montreal resident Grimes, but with a more subtle reliance on poppier tropes. If this beguiling…
Peaking Lights - Lucifer In Dub
18 Dec 2012
Underwhelming album of dub re-edits of tracks from album Lucifer
(Domino) LA husband and wife duo, Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis, aka Peaking Lights released their third album Lucifer earlier this year (after early CDrs, then 2009's Imaginary Falcons and 2011's 936). It was an elegant, woozy collection of escapist…
The Instructional Media Guide to Mindful Internet Exploration
15 Nov 2012
Lewis Cook and co explore the outer reaches of Glaswegian weird-pop
Instructional Media is the tape label brainchild of Lewis Cook, a musician, digi-psych hunter/gatherer and next-gen web ethnomusicologist. Laudable titles (mine not his), but after hearing this curio of local, weirdo-pop brews he put together, such…
Umberto - Night Has a Thousand Screams
15 Nov 2012
A suffocating horror-synth soundtrack imbued with a ponderous sense of dread
Matt Hill’s suffocating horror synth score was first premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival last year. The List was there and set as the backdrop to 80s hacksploitation flick, Pieces, it brought a palpable sense of menace and claustrophobia to an…
Bizarro-pop oddball Ariel Pink set for Glasgow's Stereo
9 Oct 2012
The man and his Haunted Graffiti cohorts are coming to town to promote new album Mature Themes
Ariel Pink recently declared in an interview, ‘If I could find another Ariel to perform my songs, I gladly would.’ For someone who pathologically enjoys tying interviewers in knots, this sentiment actually rings true. Pink is like the Pied Piper of…
The xx - Coexist
7 Sep 2012
The trio reduce and distill their nocturnal pop into small, graceful fragments
The xx have that most cherished bond with the listener – they make you feel they are performing for you and you alone. Yes, the hushed and elegant reticence displayed on their 2009 debut was soon played to death, but in those moments of quiet solitude…
Daphni - Jiaolong
7 Sep 2012
Dan Snaith aka Caribou re-embraces the sweaty allure of the dancefloor
Dan Snaith of Caribou has spoken about his Daphni project as a rite of passage he was compelled to undertake to re-engage with the sweaty allure of the dancefloor. It certainly has that mystique he was hoping for. The siren-like draw of early single ‘Ye…
Animal Collective - Centipede Hz
20 Aug 2012
Band's signature sound coralled into bright, structured bursts of glistening euporia in brilliant ne
Animal Collective have lost the ability to truly surprise the listener, but they can still enthral. As their sound has evolved, the band has smoothed off their more experimental edges and embraced a more linear sonic narrative, shedding fans drawn to…
Five electronica composers at the 2012 Edinburgh International Festival
6 Aug 2012
Terry Riley, Laurent Garnier, Craig Armstrong, Abel Korzeniowski, Isao Tomito and Ryoji Ikeda
So the Edinburgh International Festival can be regarded by some as... how does one put this delicately... highbrow? Scholarly? Of course that’s not the Festival’s fault. That’s the fault of us lowly plebeians who refuse to dive into the deep immersive…
Churches combine members of Twilight Sad, Aereogramme and Blue Sky Archives
18 Jul 2012
Soaring slice of polychrome electronic pop from Scotland
You’ve heard of CHURCHES, right? I mean, someone’s probably linked you their stunning, soaring slice of polychrome electronic pop, ‘Lies’, which hit YouTube with the stealth and devastation of a sonic exocet and instantly blew your mind, yeah? You…
Twin Shadow - Confess
29 Jun 2012
George Lewis Jr proffers poised pop record midst worldwide tour
George Lewis Jr is the perfect 21st century pop star. Handsome, talented, fêted and ridiculously cool, it’s quite possible he was grown in a petri dish to satisfy the desires of contemporary audiences who feel they can discern what is genuine from…
T in the Park 2012: Orbital interview
25 Jun 2012
Phil Hartnoll talks us through the dance duo's reformation ahead of their headline slot at T
We’ve not even dipped our collective toes into festival season and already Phil Hartnoll of Orbital concedes he’s been enjoying himself too much. ‘I’m on a yellow card, if I’m honest. It isn’t even summer yet. Paul has mellowed a bit but I still need to…
Com Truise set for UK tour
23 May 2012
Live interpretations of Galaxy Melt album with synth and drums
Okay, so imagine if Blade Runner was not set in a dark, dystopian, fetid, sweaty, neon shoe-box version of LA and instead was transposed to a glaring and perma-tanned Miami of the future, drowning in UV rays, Day-Glo colours; a city as one giant…
Dub/electronic/experimental act Hype Williams to play Glasgow's SWG3
29 Feb 2012
The London duo marry a shadowy stage presence with engaging tunes
The List once saw Hype Williams perform entirely hidden behind a white bedsheet. It was like a Poundstretcher version of Pink Floyd’s The Wall but with an added fug of skunk. The duo, Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland, revel in this sort of batshit chicanery…
GFF 2012 - Italo-horror artist Umberto
1 Feb 2012
The soundtrack specialist fits comfortably into the Glasgow Music and Film Festival strand
Horror-score revivalist Matt Hill channels the creepyass compositions of Goblin, John Carpenter and Fabio Frizzi in his eerie synthjams, conjuring up a sonic witches brew. A member of drone-merchants Expo 70, Hill has, in his Umberto guise, explored the…
