As another year folds out, it is time once again to look back and take stock or the highs and lows, before a fresh year rolls in. 2011 has had its moments and has overall been a rather good year, and trying to extract a list of twenty albums from the hundreds, thousands possibly, that I have listened to, loved, hated, reviewed or not, tried to make sense of or misunderstood seems a pretty restrictive effort at best. Still, it is always good to look back and realise that some records have made more of a mark than others, some almost imperceptibly. So, here is, in twenty records, what 2011 was made of…

1.

JENNY HVAL
Viscera
Rune Grammofon

Review:
There is such urgency throughout this record that it is quite astonishing how Hval manages to retain any lightness in her music, but she does, and [Helge] Sten picks up on just enough to bring it all to life in sprightly bright colours and tones. Continue Reading »

KING MIDAS SOUND
Without You
HDB009
Hyperdub Records 2011
15 Tracks. 63mins24secs

 Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: CD | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD

Of Kevin Martin’s many projects, King Midas Sound, his collaboration with vocalists Roger Robinson and Kiki Hitomi, is probably both the most haunting and compelling. Following a couple of EPs released in 2008 and 2009, the trio’s excellent debut album, Waiting For You, was published at the end of that same year. Martin’s shady soundscapes and dense dub grooves provided a deeply unsettling soundtrack for Robinson’s soulful lyrics and highly recognisable falsetto and Hitomi’s bitter-sweet vocals, and it is Martin once again who is in charge of the sonic aspect of Without You, but in a very different capacity as he brings together a vast array of musicians, from Flying Lotus, Deep Chord or Kuedo to Kode9 & The Spaceape, Gang Gang Dance or Rob Lowe and invites them to re-imagine Waiting For You from the ground up.

Most of the artists involved seem to have opted for retaining the acutely disturbing moods of the original album, but it is pretty much where the similarities end. Continue Reading »

Twelve months compiled into just twenty albums. From the thousands of records released each year, it is difficult to get even a handful on the site, and even more difficult to decide which ones were the best of the lot. This is however the twenty albums that have marked 2009 for themilkfactory.

Continue Reading »

KING MIDAS SOUND
Waiting For You
HDBCD003
Hyperdub Records 2009
13 Tracks. 47mins02secs

Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD

The newest alter ego of Kevin Martin, best known as The Bug, King Midas Sound, a collaboration with vocalist Roger Robinson, investigates a hazy, greasy dubstep which, while sharing a clear taste for gritty dub and rounded bass lines with The Bug, is in essence miles apart from its incendiary missiles. The pair have been working together for some time, with Robinson contributing to a number of Bug tracks over the years, but they are brought together by a very different motive here. Working on the close relationship between Martin’s deeply hypnotic atmospheric textures and Robinson’s smooth falsetto and measured delivery, King Midas Sound is a pretty tight and dense association, with a heavy narcotic-fuelled slant and sombre hues. Continue Reading »