SKYPHONE
Avellaneda
RCD2071
Rune Grammofon 2008
11 Tracks. 52mins53secs

It has taken four years for Danish trio Skyphone to follow Fabula, their rather stunning first album. Formed of childhood friends Mads Bødker, Thomas Holst and Keld Dam Schmidt after years propping up dead end rock bands, the trio began to experiment with electronic music and put down the foundation of Skyphone toward the end of the nineties. In 2004, the band’s debut was released on Rune Grammofon.

Like label mates Alog, Skyphone are primarily concerned with intricately woven sonic structures that rely on myriads of minute pieces, but instead of processing acoustic instruments into dense formations, Holst, Schmidt and Bødker focus on musical purity and dip their compositions in luxurious sound pools to bring up the natural textures of the instruments used, while discreet field recordings sprinkled all over the course of the album give the compositions a truly pastoral feel. 24 free ringtones | sprint pcs ringtones | download ringtones motorola | dash mobile ringtones t | cricket phone ringtones | download free cingular ringtones | ringtones for nokia phone | disney free mobile ringtones | c139 motorola ringtones | sprint download ringtones | free cingular wireless ringtones | free ringtones for sprint phone | free ringtones for verizon phone | mobile ringtones converter | nextel ringtones | free ringtones for nextel phone | free kyocera ringtones | download free ringtones nokia | cell phone ringtones wallpaper | ringtones for nextel phone |
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PETER BRODERICK
Float
TYPE027
Type Recordings 2008
10 Tracks. 35mins46secs

Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, multi-instrumentist Peter Broderick moved to Copenhagen in the second half of last year when Danish folksters extraordinaire Efterklang invited him to join their touring caravan following the release of their excellent Parades. Not one to miss a golden opportunity, Broderick dropped everything and took his quarters in the Danish capital, and has spent the last six months criss-crossing Europe as part of the band as well as alternating opening slots with Danish singer Anna Brønsted, aka Our Broken Garden.

Following Broderick’s debut single, released on Type last year, and a limited edition mini album of solo piano works, Docile, released last November on Swedish imprint Kning Disk, Float collects ten compositions which expands on the delicate pieces of Docile to incorporate voluptuous orchestral swathes and other instrumental textures. Continue Reading »

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Magnetism, That Electricity
HPLL026
Highpoint Lowlife 2008
12 Tracks. 74mins46secs

For some time now, the excellent Highpoint Lowlife have refocused their outputs by publishing extremely limited hand crafted CDR editions, but the quality of the music released has in no way waned, as recent releases by Tigrics and Erstlaub have shown. Magnetism, That Electricity is the latest project initiated by label head Thorsten Sideb0ard, and follows the Analog For Architecture DVDR compilation released a year and a half ago. The project was devised primarily to be pressed on vinyl and released as a double EP, with four very different acts from the HPLL stable given the full run of a side each. Answering the call are atmospheric drone rockers Mandelbrot Set and electronic outfits Fisk Industries, The Village Orchestra and The Marcia Blaine School For Girls. Continue Reading »

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CHRIS DOOKS
The Aesthetic Animals Album
BEN540
Benbecula Records 2008
10 Tracks. 39mins43secs

Strange and elusive animal, is Chris Dooks. His first incarnation was in the shape of Bovine Live, a fiercely experimental and eclectic project which saw him transmit from his bedroom, via the Internet, and collaborate with musicians from around the world. Not unusual these days, but back when Social Electrics was recorded, between 1997 and 1999, the process was still pretty new and, as broadband hadn’t yet become the norm, not perhaps the most obvious choice for this kind of endeavours. With this album, released on the ever-excellent Bip-Hop, Dooks worked from found sounds and electronics, which he threw bouncing around on the web and which, caught and treated by a myriad of other like-minded artists, where sent back and assembled into a coherent body of work. Followed a handful of contributions to one of Bip-Hop’s home brewed compilations and a collaboration with German artist Frank Bretschneider, AKA Komet, for the first in Bip-Hop’s short-lived Reciprocess series. Continue Reading »

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Originally hailing from Portland, Oregon, multi-instrumentist Peter Broderick currently resides in Copenhagen, where he moved to toward the end of last year after Efterklang inviting him to join the band for the tour that followed the release of Parades, their album of last year. Broderick has recently released a beautiful mini album on Swedish imprint Kning Disk entirely made of instrumental piano compositions, and his debut album, Float, is about to be released on Type. We caught up with him as he was about to embark on yet another leg of the Efterklang tour to talk about the multiple facets of his work, living in Europe, recording on a shoe string and endorsing a one-man band persona on stage. Continue Reading »

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CUT COPY
In Ghost Colours
MOD103CD
Modular 2008
15 Tacks. 50mins54secs

Four years have passed since Melbourne quartet Cut Copy released their debut album, Bright Like Neon Love, and the heavily eighties influenced sound the band have championed from as far back as 2001, has almost become vintage in its own right, and has even been badly trampled over by the New Rave craze that briefly blew a tepid breeze last year.

Formed in early 2001 in Melbourne, Australia, by Dan Whitford, who was later joined by additional musicians Bennett Foddy. Mitchell Scott and Tim Hoey, Cut Copy were rapidly signed to Modular, home of The Avalanches, Klaxons, New Young Pony Club and Soulwax to name but a few. Having delivered a number of EPs between 2001 and 2003, the band released their debut album the following year, followed by a contribution to the ever expending FabricLive series in 2006.

Fast-forward to 2008, and the next chapter in the Cut Copy story. Recorded with DFA producer Tim Goldsworthy, who invited the band to make good use of the facilities of the label’s Plantain Studio in New York, In Ghost Colours is a much more confident and consistent affair, which alternates strong pop songs and short instrumental interludes. Continue Reading »

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BEATUNDERCONTROL
Cosmic Repackage
MD632
Malicious Damage 2008
09 Tracks. 49mins56secs

Swedish bassist Ulf Ivarrson has, in the thirty years he has been around, taken a variety of musical paths which have led him from punk to rock, pop, techno and dub. He first appeared on the music scene in 1981, aged just fifteen, with Swedish outfit The Quiet, where he met drummer Christer Björklund, with whom he has since played very regularly. After leaving the band in 1983, he went on to play with a variety of formations, including rock band Sky High, in 1991, and Swedish world music group Hedningarna, in 1996, before setting up his own project, Beatundercontrol, with which he went on to experiment with electronic instrumental music, combining it with elements of dub, jazz and ethnic music. Ivarrson released his first album as Beatundercontrol, The Introduction, in 2003.

While Ivarrson hasn’t remained inactive since, it is only now, five years on from his first output, that he returns, this time on British imprint Malicious Damage, with Cosmic Repackage. Continue Reading »

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FOUR TET
Ringer
RUG295CD/RUG295T
Domino Recording Co. 2008
04 Tracks. 31mins33secs
Format: CDS/12″/Digital

It has been a while, over two years in fact, since Kieran Hebden last paraded as Four Tet. During this time, his focus has been on his collaboration with jazz drummer and percussionist Steve Reid, with various degrees of success. Since 2005, the pair have relentlessly toured and released three records, two if the Exchange Session diptych is to be counted as one offering.

One of the pioneers of the ill-named folktronica movement, a tag he has constantly rejected ever since it was stamped all over his work, Hebden abandons here, perhaps not permanently, the future will tell, the voluptuous formations that have made him a near-household name and turns his attention to much more purely electronic soundscapes. Continue Reading »

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PORTISHEAD
Third
1764013
Island Records 2008
11 Tracks. 50mins06secs

In the mid nineties, Britain was still struggling to deal with a recent past which had left some pretty deep social scares. The strikes, high unemployment and economic meltdown of the early eighties had been topped up with the hangover that followed the mighty party of the late eighties and early nighties, and it would be a while yet for things to ‘get better’. The depression that followed and the state of mind of the nation at that particular point was documented by a bunch of misfits from Bristol. Alongside Massive Attack and Tricky, Portishead, a trio hailing from the grim seaside town of the same name, a few miles outside Bristol, were establishing the foundations of a sound that would mark a generation.

While Massive Attack and Tricky relied heavily on soul and hip-hop, Portishead projected a much more cinematic sound, infused with sixties and seventies soundtrack music, heavily processed to take away their natural sheen and rendered instead in charcoal overtones and gritty textures, a process that marked the band’s debut, Dummy, and even more so their eponymous follow up, released almost four years later. Continue Reading »

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ESSIE JAIN
We Made This Ourselves
BAY62CD
The Leaf Label 2008
10 Tracks. 41mins03secs

While Essie Jain was born and raised in London, it is from New York, where she moved in 2001, that she operates. Music has been a part of her life from a very early age, learning classical piano, cello and, later, opera, but rejected it all at the end of her adolescence. It is only some years later, as she was going through a difficult time in her life, that she turned to music once again as a mean to express her emotions. After moving to New York, she spent some time collaborating with various musicians before meeting guitarist Patrick Glynn with whom she began working on her debut album. The result, We Made This Ourselves, was originally released on Brooklyn-based Ba Da Ding over a year ago, and is now given a new lease of life thanks to Leaf, just as her second album is due out in the US.

Although the folk brushes have brought comparisons to anything from Vashti Bunyan to Nick Drake, there is, throughout We Made This Ourselves, a strong reminiscence of This Mortal Coil’s third album, Blood, especially in the way melodies erupt in vocal harmonies. Continue Reading »

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