OUR BROKEN GARDEN
Lost Sailor
BELLACD164
Bella Union 2008
06 Tracks. 19mins34secs
Format: CDS/Digital

In the light of her recent live performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, on London’s South Bank, when she opened for Efterklang, it is quite fitting that Anna Brønsted’s Our Broken Garden has been signed to Simon Raymond’s and Robin Guthrie’s Bella Union. Indeed, thanks in part to dense guitar textures, some of her set was very reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins circa Victorialand and the collaboration they did with Harold Budd on The Moon And The Melody. Continue Reading »

Young Icelandic classical artist Ólafur Arnalds will be performing at London’s Barbican Centre on Friday 20 June, with support from UK band Yndi Halda. Arnalds recently released the Variations Of Static EP, follow up to his debut album, Eulogy For Evolution, on London-based Erased Tapes.

Twenty-one year old Arnalds is set to showcase his stunning blend of electronic and indie-infused contemporary classical music.

Ólafur Arnalds | Erased Taped | Barbican Centre

Hightpoint Lowlife will be hosting two parties at the end of the month to celebrate the release of the forthcoming new EP from Dutch duo Funkarma. The 12″, entitled Dubstoned EP1, will be released on 25 June 2008 on Highpoint Lowlife and is the first in a series of dubstep-infused EPs from the duo.

Requirements Of A Modern, the launch parties, will be held at Plastic People in London on 25 June and Cube Cinema in Bristol on 27 June, with live sets from Funkarma, Ikonika and Fisk Industries.

For further details, check the Highpoint Lowlife website.

Highpoint Lowlife

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CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE
From Etudes To Cataclysms For The Doppio Borgato
SR272
Sub Rosa
15 Tracks. 135minutes56secs

Charlemagne Palestine is an American composer born in the mid 1940s in New York. He may be as well known for his fascination for soft toys, as featured extensively on his website and in his performances, as he is for his intensely minimal music, often consisting of two notes that expand into clusters of sound as they progress.

From Etudes To Cataclysms is a 135 minute composition in fifteen parts, performed by the composer on a unique double piano played by both hands and feet. Imagine two grand pianos, one standard, one with its legs removed, placed beneath the other and operated by foot pedals. It’s a strange object to behold, but it seems fitting for Palestine’s unique music. Continue Reading »

Swedish ensemble Mariam Wallentin and Andreas Werliin, whose debut album, Heatcore, was recently released outside of their homeland by Leaf, graced Kilburn’s Luminaire for a somewhat short but perfectly formed headlining set.

First to take to the stage was London-based Banjo Or Freakout, who has gained a bit of a reputation in recent months with the tracks posted on the act’s MySpace page and was featured on Drowned In Sound’s artists to look out for. Continue Reading »

MRS JYNX
The Standoffish Cat
ZIQ207 CD
Planet Mu 2008
13 tracks. 58mins27secs

IDM, electronica, ambient techno – everyone has their own name for the music that shaped the electronic music scene of the 1990s. Everyone too has their own list of the heroes who dominated the scene, whether it be Aphex Twin, Autechre, Black Dog or one of countless other artists to have come to prominence in that era. Yet everyone also has their own theory about when IDM fell apart, and when the scene’s death was officially confirmed. For some, it was the slipshod meanderings of Aphex Twin’s Drukqs that drove the nail into the coffin, proving that Richard D. James, the movement’s leading voice, had finally lost his way. For others, it was the recondite nature of Autechre’s Confield that proved electronic music had lost its pulse and drifted into the obscure realms of academia. But whatever the moment, whatever the cause, few now would dispute that IDM as we once knew it is a dead movement. Continue Reading »

Whether the focus is on his divine set of Motown-esque pipes, his instrumental arrangements evoking classic soul, or his thoroughly modern electronic production prowess, there’s no denying that Jamie Lidell is a man of many talents. Coming off the heels of his frenetic breakthrough Multiply, JIM, Lidell’s latest, is set to catapult him even further into the spotlight. Here, Lidell takes a break from touring to speak to David Abravanel about his new band, medical-utensil swag, how Rick Astley has influenced him, and why Cristian Vogel’s name should never be spelled with an “h”, all with his biting wit and charisma in tow. Continue Reading »

NICO MUHLY
Mothertongue
HVALUR5CD
Bedroom Community 2008
10 Tracks. 49mins11secs

A year on from the release of his critically acclaimed debut album Speaks Volumes, New York-based classical composer Nico Muhly returns with an altogether more ambitious and visionary record. Entirely based around the notion of language, Mothertongue is a strange and fascinating work which goes beyond Muhly’s previous work and undoubtedly feeds on his brush with various musical genres, most notably with the likes of Björk, Antony & The Johnsons or Bedroom Community’s label head and producer Valgeir Sigurðsson.

Split into three major parts, each recorded with a different vocal artist and making use of the human voice in a particular way. Continue Reading »

NICOLA RATTI
From The Desert Came Saltwater
ANTICIPATE005
Anticipate Recordings 2008
06 tracks. 44mins42secs

What most people know about Nicola Ratti could be written on the back of a postcard. The former guitarist of the now defunct Pin Pin Sugar is not exactly a household name, although work with Giuseppe Ielasi on 2007’s well-regarded Bellows will have gone some way to establishing him with a wider audience. He has also collaborated with Andrea Belfi, and is today a guitarist with underground Italian instrumentalists Ronin. But obscurity is probably not something that would worry someone like Ratti. After all, his sound virtually invites it. Hushed guitars played at half-pace on studied, earnest compositions are not easily going to grab the attention of the average listener. But this is the point, it seems, with his music, and with From The Desert Came Saltwater in particular. It is the sound of music stripped of verbosity and excess, a sound that in doing very little very slowly manages to lure its way insidiously into perception. Continue Reading »

DAEDELUS
Love To Make Music To
ZENCD142
Ninja Tune 2008
15 Tracks. 55mins00secs

With nine albums and a handful of EPs and collaborations under his belt, Daedelus’s Alfred Darlington has made the blend of hip-hop-infused electronica he has helped shaping up his own, giving it an unmistakable dandy slant. Love To Make Music To, his latest offering, his first long player recorded especially for Ninja Tune, is once again a distinctively colourful and varied collection, centred on an imaginary story which begins during the 1894 Chicago World’s Fair and concludes a hundred years later. Continue Reading »