All Delighted People EP - Sufjan Stevens

All Delighted People EP

Sufjan Stevens
Asthmatic Kitty Records / Bandcamp.

SCQ Rating: 83%

When Sufjan Stevens admitted – in a sudden non sequitur to Exclaim Magazine last fall – that he was suffering an existential crisis as a songwriter, many fans and music journalists deemed the indie-darling creatively lost. Not even a filled-to-capacity outtakes record, five discs of Christmas cheer and a classical project about the BQE Expressway could distract Sufjan-fans from the glaring lack of new material Stevens was issuing, all the while Illinoise’ shadow continued to grow…

All Delighted People, the out-of-nowhere EP that launched from Stevens’ Bandcamp page two weeks ago, finds the prince of indie-folk shedding the many outlandish expectations that have followed him through the years. The 50 States Project, the expectations for another concept-driven epic; All Delighted People pushes these dusty conversation-points off the proverbial cliff. Instead these seven new songs capture Stevens at the fringe of his artful bipolarity, nuzzling progressive epics with the stripped-back acoustics prominent on his Songs For Christmas box set.

First, the epics which bookend the EP, ‘All Delighted People (Original Version)’ and ‘Djohariah’; at eleven and seventeen minutes, respectively, these tracks take opposing approaches to the longform composition, the title track contrasting sweet minimalism with confrontational orchestration, the closer riding the spastic-guitar and deep grooves of a hippie-commune. Both take self-conscious stabs at keeping the listener at arm’s length but end up boasting a complexity that makes its emotional core all the more satisfying to uncover. Landlocked between these shape-shifting boulders lies humble folk songs (‘Enchanting Ghost’, ‘Heirloom’) and a fluttering slapdash of fleeting ideas (‘From the Mouth of Gabriel’), their intentions earnest enough to remind us of Stevens’ raw songwriting power, if unable to match the exhausting nature of its neighbouring giants. Although relatively straightforward, these tracks don’t gel so much as own their own sonic territory, some permeating of Seven Swans era acoustics (as on the shaggy charms of ‘Arnika’), others isolated in their own worlds (the bareboned piano on ‘The Owl and the Tanager’). Stevens is no stranger to variety, only here his songs are autonomous and unattached to a greater cause. Bizarrely, this isolation makes each song feel increasingly brazen.

Whether one views All Delighted People EP as a surprise party or an unexpected stop-gap release, it’s an important sixty minutes that suggests five years has yet to dethrone Stevens from either his lo-fi or high-gloss indie-rock realms. He’s abandoned his delicate voice in favour of something more immediate, challenged his songs with rollercoaster narratives, and shaken the weight of his past successes off his shoulders. Don’t be surprised if All Delighted People, intertwined with its stylistic departures and familiar retreats, becomes known as the epilogue to Sufjan Stevens’ much-loved preciousness.

Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People (Original Version) by de.stijl

Captured From Static - Northcape

Captured From Static

Northcape
Sun Sea Sky Records.

SCQ Rating: 75%

Finding soul amid machinery has been the greatest challenge at the root of electronica, its presence - however lucid or impossible - defining the genre’s successes and failures. Each masterwork in its field is heralded for possessing that humane telltale, imbedding each click and tone with otherworldly personality, and yet pinpointing those gears at work is, at best, a matter of opinion. Captured From Static, the latest release by Northcape (Alastair Brown), falls into that generous gray area, a work that finds human fingerprints beneath the staunchly electronic sound.

Operating on crisp drum-machines and a pristine palette of keys, Captured From Static calls to mind some key victories for home-listening electronica this past decade. Variety is scattered yet buried in frozen tones; ‘Approaching the Trig Point’, for example, evokes the icy melodies of early Morr Music before ‘Grove Park’ steps into a micro-house inspired momentum. Those references aren’t difficult to detect, but they are initially overshadowed by Northcape’s frosty touch that unites Captured From Static in a tonal wash. Gauzy like the most detail-oriented shoegaze guitarist, Northcape's stimulating atmospheres call to mind an IDM-loving, albeit less morose, The Sight Below.

That Captured From Static welcomes comparisons to turn-of-the-century era electronic movements doesn’t render it dated, as these compositions sound splendidly futurist. Instead, Northcape’s serious focus on songcraft gives a conservative impression, one that on initial spins flirts with appearing faceless, yet as its songs envelop listeners with efficient, ego-free techniques, so too does Captured From Static’s personality bloom from the ice. The couplet of ‘Into Sunlight’ and ‘First Day In a New Town’ best represent Brown’s versatility, the former’s keys hanging like fog over a beatless abyss, the latter anchored by head-nod worthy percussion. With Northcape, you’re never quite sure whether his work is transmitting through expressive moods or technical austerity, but there’s no questioning the fingerprint visible upon each note.

Doesn't feel like a long way by northcape

Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed - Pale Sketcher

Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed

Pale Sketcher
Ghostly International.

SCQ Rating: 79%

Few artists working today have maintained their inherent enigma while being as prolific as Justin K. Broadrick. You’d think the man responsible for Godflesh, Final and Jesu – not to mention significant roles in Napalm Death and a bunch of side-projects – would be easier to decode as he enters the third decade of his recording career, but you’d be wrong. With his last high-profile release, Jesu’s Opiate Sun, it appeared as though Broadrick was abandoning his recent electronic flirtations in favour of old-school sludge-metal. Like so many other left-turns in his career, Broadrick double-backs into digital experimentation again with Pale Sketcher, a guise born to “demix” tracks from his 2007 Jesu release called (wait for it…) Pale Sketches Demixed.

Now for fans of beat-laced Broadrick (think Lifeline EP or Why Are We Not Perfect EP), Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed warrants immediate welcoming but, make no mistake, these aren’t typical Jesu tunes. ‘Can I Go Now’ may carry the over-arching melody and gauzy synths to deserve inclusion on Why Are We Not Perfect EP, but its execution is far dreamier, its vocals muffled androgynously behind the syrupy keys. As a new chapter to an unpredictable catalog, Pale Sketcher finds Broadrick’s electronic capabilities undergoing an evolution, albeit one viewed in soft focus. How else to describe the plush soundscapes that oscillate the percolating dub of ‘Plans That Fade’, that forebode under chiming piano on ‘Don’t Dream It’? Rough-edged beats help keep these pastoral hymns somewhat gritty; when used delicately, they help pace a peaceful solitude (‘The Playgrounds Are Empty’) but, when amped up, Broadrick’s beats create an aural space you’d prefer not to be alone in (‘Wash It All Away’).

That we hardly notice Broadrick’s absence as a vocalist might be an indicator of one of Jesu: Pale Sketches’ great strengths. These compositions don’t feel lacking or in particular need of a vocal guide. And when he does turn up nearly effects-free on the slightly industrial ‘Supple Hope’, it briefly steals us from Pale Sketcher’s universal, language-free headspace. For a moment, it feels like a Jesu record and, while this collection unifies the work of Jesu and Pale Sketcher (thereby deeming the idea of distinguishing them sorta pointless), the majority of these songs speak out to listeners from a different plane. Broadrick still uses a hammer to drive home a song’s emotional value but, in these electronic surroundings, his impact lends a gentle nudge.

Somehow Disappearing - New Idea Society

Somehow Disappearing

New Idea Society
Shiny Shoes Records.

SCQ Rating: 77%

A friend and I were recently discussing Autumn as a feeling, and how it registers to our senses long before the actual season goes about bringing leaves down and beckoning jackets from our closets. On a random August day we’ll feel the transition take hold of us, and no humidity or late-night fun from that point on feels genuinely summer-ish. Unsurprisingly, each August I find myself with a record that longs and bloodlets the way I do for Fall, so I hug it tightly. Perhaps New Idea Society’s knowing nod to The Cure’s commercial height gives Somehow Disappearing its understanding-starved center, or maybe it’s how the death of summer provokes lead-singer Mike Law’s urgent communications. When combined effectively, these weapons of modest drama inform the quintet’s third full-length with heavy handfuls of memorable dark pop.

Opening with the elegiac piano and undercut by some radiator distortion, ‘All Alone’ spreads out in aftermath, as if we’ve wandered into the first chapter of a forlorn diary. A song about disconnection more than abandonment, ‘All Alone’ isn’t nearly as Emo as it sounds on paper, even if Law’s voice does strike an unstable middle-ground between turn-of-the-century Conor Oberst and Matt Pryor of Get Up Kids. Somehow Disappearing is indebted to solid rock dynamics, fusing The Cure’s static mournfulness with peppy hooks on ‘Autumn You’ and piano sweeps on ‘Disappearing’. Contrasting the more upbeat, addictive numbers like ‘Strange Language’, New Idea Society display a flair for atmospheric slowburners as witnessed on the shimmering ‘Halluminations’ and the plodding momentum of ‘Come Outside’. The bands’ ability to evoke such compelling, eerie moods from a cheat-free set-up of guitars, piano, bass and percussion awards significant indie-credit, not to mention giving Law the freedom to hold onto each lyric as if they’re escaping from his wrists.

For all of the reasons stated above, it’s disappointing that Somehow Disappearing begins to self-fulfill its title with a second half that rarely competes with so many early highlights. No one song falls particularly flat but a short string of them dull the band’s sharp approach to songwriting. The relentless urgency pushing ‘Desolation Tongues’ gets a little claustrophobic while ‘If You Slip Under’ goes a few steps too deep – okay, way too deep - into Disintegration’s waters. Still, none of these slight lapses distract from New Idea Society’s obvious potential, which is spread across Somehow Disappearing's brooding majority.

In the Days Of Jupiter - Lights Out Asia

In the Days Of Jupiter

Lights Out Asia
n5MD Records.

SCQ Rating: 84%

It was in the bleakest week of winter - end of January, beginning of February – when I first heard Lights Out Asia at a friend’s apartment in Montreal. Through a sampling of what my friend judged as key tracks, maybe three in all, I knew this was neither another post-rock band dabbling in electronics nor anything I could readily compare against. Truly, Tanks and Recognizers delivered that something I’d been missing in my record collection, and nothing’s likely to steal its thunder, now or ever.

What makes Tanks and Recognizers so untouchable isn’t that the 2007 outing’s dynamics can’t be cloned or recycled, but that Lights Out Asia don’t even attempt a victory lap. In the Days Of Jupiter zip-lines out to where Eyes Like Brontide wandered two years ago, then skips a few galaxies for some unspoiled pastures, both alien and ambient. Carried weightless into this unfurling distance by ‘All These Worlds Are Yours’ and encountering first-turmoil on ‘Except Europa’, we listeners have no safety chute to steer free with, no rational opening to abuse the skip-button. Best heard as a whole, In the Days Of Jupiter paces its interplanetary tour with extended bouts of cool electronics and sudden collisions of ferocity, typically trading serene nuances (‘All Is Quiet In the Valley’) for blistering guitar assaults (’13 AM’). Although many of these tracks exude spaciousness and foreboding – like ‘Attempt No Landing Here’, which creeps from a supple chill-out track into a Godspeed! You Black Emperor build – but the explosive electronic-rock marriage evident on Tanks and Recognizers is largely gone. Here, the spectrum gets wider, the poles more extreme, and the journey more intense.

As with any dramatic shift, some fans will cry foul, citing their heavy crescendos and Chris Schafer’s vocals as too absent, too often. Those are fair criticisms for a first-listen scenario – hell, they were mine – but for all of Lights Out Asia’s attention to atmosphere, none of it falters into negative space or, worse, tedium. Alternately, the album’s back-end gets surprisingly antsy, retracing wall-to-wall dance production in ‘Then I Hope You Like the Desert’ and epic rise-then-crumble dynamics on ‘Shifting Sands Wreck Ships’. Like its limitless cover-art, In the Days Of Jupiter keeps blurring the horizon, camouflaging as a meditative affair when emotion is raging just beneath the clouds. There’s no going back, and fortunately, Lights Out Asia knew this before I did.

Unleft - Helios

Unleft

Helios
Unseen Records.

SCQ Rating: 73%

Of home-listening electronica’s many sentinels, few possess Helios’ reputation for well-rounded instrumental songwriting on a track-by-track basis. Never satisfied with segue noodling or left-turns that derail a song’s momentum, Helios (Keith Kenniff) ensures that each composition is self-sustaining, pillared by its ominous progressions and founded on his knack for gravitas. On one hand, this flawless approach to songwriting has threatened to defang his LP work, rendering each track a predictable cousin to a previously recorded shade of melancholy. And although 2008’s Caesura adequately proved this notion false – or, at least, testified to Kenniff’s ability to write a moving full-length – no one was expecting Kenniff to bail on his tonal palette and surprise his listeners with an unexpected shift.

For fans of Helios who encourage his vigilant respect for full-lengths but wish his albums didn’t suffer from too much aesthetic forethought, Unleft will find a cushy spot on your record-rotation mantle. As a collection of orphaned tracks recorded between 2000 and 2009, Unleft celebrates the subtle variety within Helios’ catalog by touring through his secretive playbook. A warped guitar that buzzes behind ‘Cross the Ocean’ gets drowned-out by echoed piano bits and an unflinching breakbeat, whereas ‘Friedel’ goes minimalist with one slow-motion build of ambient keys that blows open. It’s refreshing to hear Kenniff ease back on his perfectionist tendencies, letting ‘Every Hair On Your Head’ wash delicately across its four-minute run-time without menacing the aura. The odd track even sounds indifferent because Kenniff hasn’t unprovoked it to move mountains but any fan of Helios should come to love airy breaths of solitude like ‘The Jaguar Sun’ for what they are.

Granted, only a few cuts here rival the heart-wrenching drama of Caesura or Eingya but, having sequenced Unleft no differently than those proper albums, Helios weaves his crunchy organic beats and restrained keys through the usual emotional gamut. With the production still top-notch and melodies deserving of the Helios canon, Kenniff has delivered a sweet stop-gap release no fan should overlook.

Everyday Balloons - A Weather

Everyday Balloons

A Weather
Team Love Records.

SCQ Rating: 82%

Despite featuring three brilliant stand-alone tracks, Cove narrowly missed landing on Skeleton Crew Quarterly’s Top Twenty Albums of 2008. It was a contentious decision for both sides of my evaluation protocol; the listener who’d let A Weather slide into his personal slipstream all year cried for a recount while the objective voice reasoned with several exhibits’ worth of tighter records. Alas, even two years on, Cove is an easier album to live and empathize with than to hype and pamphleteer over. What felt slightly undercooked between expertly arranged ballads like ‘Shirley Road Shirley’ or ‘Oh My Stars’ were the defeated odes that weren’t a drag so much as a light humming beneath our alertness.

Cove’s humble force – tender songwriting with understated arrangements – shines more brightly on Everyday Balloons, a sophomore that expands the group’s emotional reach without ringing false to their casually low-key approach. Even at their staunchly modest core, A Weather convey grander ideas at a sneaky pace; both ‘Third Of Life’, with its punchier electric chords, and ‘Newfallen’, a lounge-y track that sounds surprisingly like early Jens Lekman, hint at these bolder directions. Beyond laying clues to more effusive songwriting, vocalists Aaron Gerber and Sarah Winchester get full-on extroverted with ‘Winded’, a lighthearted piano jaunt that resonates at the chorus, and ‘Giant Stairs’, which subtly brings out a post-grunge shuffle not unlike cult-faves The Rentals. As with Cove, these sweeping compositions overshadow a few quieter ruminations that prefer close listening. ‘Seven Blankets’ is a deservedly narcoleptic display of dulled guitar tones and sleepy percussion; if you’re a fan of A Weather, you’ll fall right into it.

Few things are as comforting as A Weather sounding perfectly at home with their craft and, despite the aforementioned songwriting upgrades, Everyday Balloons works best picking up where Cove left off. The melancholic folk of ‘No Big Hope’ is eternalized by Gerber and Winchester’s soft vocal-collisions whereas ‘Lay Me Down’ builds from a stationary vision into a percolating, imperative rock number. Like an old friend, it’s wonderful to have A Weather back; they’ve gone traveling, they’ve gathered some touching stories to share, but when you sit down with them, they’re the same promising band you last visited with.

From Arcs To Embers - Bitcrush

From Arcs To Embers

Bitcrush
n5MD Records.

SCQ Rating: 78%

Remix albums are rarely a popular type of release, typically stirring as much anticipation as your average London Philharmonic Orchestra Plays the Music Of… compilation. I suspect a number of grounds for disinterest from a listener’s perspective: (1) the compilation lacks an appealing flow due to so many hands in the jar, (2) it’s recycled material that borrows from an original you likely prefer, and all these qualms arise after you consider the inherent disconnect behind The Remix as an idea, (3) whereby an artist who didn’t write the song reorganizes it without the heart. Coming from the top tiers of n5MD, however, this remix project made clear straightaway that all presumptions were mute.

Earlier this year, I was forced to take a hard look at my tenets of remix-ignorance upon the release of Aarktica’s In Sea Remixes, which, dare I say, nearly trumps the original 2009 effort. Bitcrush (Mike Cadoo, previously of Gridlock and Dryft) takes this revisionist approach a few step further with From Arcs To Embers, a collection of remixes that span his six releases, from 2004’s Enarc up to this year’s Of Embers. And I shouldn’t be surprised how excellent it is; a thrilling elegy of pillowed glitches and sweeping electronic melodies, From Arcs To Embers brings the emotional crème of Bitcrush’s compositions to the ice-surface. No one with a pulse should be able to escape the delicate power of Near the Parenthesis’ remix of ‘The Days We Spent Within’, which unfurls with the majesty of a subdued Sigur Ros epic, nor should they underestimate Bersarin Quartett’s widescreen remix of ‘Post’ which opens the album. With a strong focus on drifting beats and still-life atmospherics, it’s architecturally smart to have some head-nod worthy percussion, courtesy of Worm Is Green and Funckarma, bolster the LP from getting sleepy. Throw some explosive charges into the mix, such as Jatun’s take on ‘Waiting For Something’ and port-royal’s glacial stretch on ‘Of Embers’, and here we have another remix record in 2010 that has positively stumped me. Acting as both a collaborative celebration between well-respected electronic musicians and a necessary reminder of Bitcrush's exciting output so far, From Arcs To Embers closes this early chapter of Mike Cadoo's discography with grace and heart.

Feral Horse - Tyler Butler

Feral Horse

Tyler Butler
Independent.

SCQ Rating: 64%

Certain musical styles will never age and Tyler Butler knows this. Fronting the buttoned-down folk that hovers around Feral Horse, Butler never sounds young or old, in love or fed up. Even when claiming he’s “in love all the time” on the title track, Butler doesn’t sound very pleased about it. With an appealingly longing voice, the Edmonton-based songwriter certainly fits the often sad-sack genre, standing alone or leading a loose group of musicians through troubled recollections.

Unfurling with two brilliant tracks, ‘Maythorn’ and ‘House Like a Shell’, Feral Horse sets the bar rather high; the opener featuring some of Butler’s clearest vocals amid the life-affirming shuffle of bass and percussion, the latter song a dimly atmospheric crawler fleshed out with sparse piano. Full of wise lyricism and focused moods, these tracks offset each other well before settling into the mini-album’s slow-core heart. At this midpoint, maybe around ‘Opium War’ or ‘Tomato Fever’, listeners will either pass or fail Butler’s litmus test, choosing to stick with his increasingly introverted tales or stepping back, and that’s the reality of a release so dedicatedly one-note. Heart-on-sleeve narratives need some resistance - if not executed in perspective, than at least in aesthetic – to keep listeners attentive or curious. Maintaining such a low-key vibe throughout is an admirable position to take but, in the case of ‘Beluga’ where no element reasonably distinguishes itself from what’s already been done, this songwriter’s book risks becoming self-therapeutic.

As with Feral Horse’s early highlights, small details continue to unveil themselves upon repeated listens. Closing track ‘Horse and Rider’, for example, acquires a depth of distant guitar tones that swim beneath its structure and give Butler a setting to paint with his vocals. By the time a dissonant guitar chimes in, saying more in its contrast of negative space than half the songs preceding it, ‘Horse and Rider’ makes up for Feral Horse’s indifferent middle-section. Worth considering: what true music enthusiast objects to letting the right song disarm them? What music fan doesn’t want to be brought down into a navel-gazing ballad if it envelops them convincingly? The artists (like Sun Kil Moon) who’ve crafted elegant careers on that singular ambition had to look outward, taking in their surroundings to better understand themselves. By giving added depth to his arrangements – a time and place, if you will - there’s no reason Tyler Butler cannot do the same.

White Fence - White Fence

White Fence

White Fence
Make a Mess/Woodsist Records.

SCQ Rating: 79%

Occasionally an album emits such a sun-drenched, easy-going charisma, one needs to change the way they review it. In this case, I’m sitting out on the balcony with a strange imported beer I’ve never tried and taking in the heat as though it’ll be snowing by evening. Few records find me welcoming August for what it is – hot and dry – like White Fence’s self-titled effort, but the skill with which Tim Presley squeezes psych, folk and garage-rock into his lo-fi wading pool is downright masterful.

Does it sound too obscene or generic to compare White Fence to Loaded-era Velvet Underground, early Kinks Brit-pop and the less extravagant moments of late-period Beatles, when we know all the psychotropic drugs that influenced those records? Nah, not when the feel-good vibes of this record belong so obsessively within the narcotic boundaries of its sixteen tracks. Take how the DIY-styled jangle-rock of ‘Mr. Adams’ slides into the harsher riffs of ‘Destroy Everything’, how the battered psychedelic touchstones of ‘The Love Between’ marry fractured punk riffs on ‘Box Desease Today Bond’; White Fence is an historical slippery-slope, a smattering of influences that confuse the timeline between rock’s awakening with its intoxication on excess.

What makes this exploration more than a simple revivalist project is how Presley outshines many of mainstream’s cyclical trends without abandoning his aesthetic. ‘Hard Finish On Mirror Mile’ and ‘I’ll Follow You’, two of White Fence’s finest songwriting moments, evoke the timeless appeal of pre-Dig Brian Jonestown Massacre while ‘Who Feels Right’ illustrates a sound the Chemical Brothers have been trying to mine for twenty years (and without their top-notch equipment, at that). White Fence isn’t just crucial listening for 60s music-fans, it’s a wake-up call for people who write off lo-fi as an underdeveloped sound. If anything, Presley stretches himself a bit thin with the odd throwaway segue. Luckily, they’re part of White Fence’s shaggy production which sprinkles these progressive songs of nostalgia with the ashes of a decade best remembered by forgetting.

Zombies!!! - Glory Glory Man United

Zombies!!!

Glory Glory Man United
Out of Sound Records.

SCQ Rating: 80%

As far as a leadoff track and single from their full-length debut is concerned, ‘Pop Song Automaton’ seems perfectly titled, chugging to life with bar-room bluster and multi-tracked calls from vocalist Adam Warren. So fluent and uncompromising, the hooks seem capable of writing themselves until the trio bends the song’s urgency around pristine guitar chasms and, suddenly, the automaton switch has turned off. Halifax-based Glory Glory Man United prove talented at this, laying familiar indie-rock dishes throughout Zombies!!! before pulling the tablecloth and sending listeners teetering into richly integrated guitar tones.

Rounded out by Gavin Maclean (bass/vocals) and Ryan Brown (drums/vocals), Glory Glory Man United blend tongue-in-cheek sentiments with a layered guitar-rock approach that gives Zombies!!! a vaguely cosmic veneer. ‘Sun Don’t Come Out’ spends its first half evoking Hail To the Thief’s foreboding before stomping in puddles of guitar, which like ‘First Monkey Shot Into Space’, dabbles in purposeful atmospherics without impeding the track’s drive. That sense of momentum not only holds throughout this debut LP’s ten cuts, it gets increasingly heartfelt as Glory Glory Man United save their most devastating moments for the back-half. Building off a finger-picked electric, ‘Mountain Town’ manages subtle ascensions before locking into a percussively tight chorus. Elsewhere, ‘Congratulations On your Latest Engagement’ finds a melodic equilibrium that allows slight detours from its relentless tempo without forcing Warren to mince words. Closing track ‘Fish In the Water’ collects the album’s best traits, offering pulsating yet contemplative choruses with an instrumental underbelly just waiting to combust. Hardly automated, Zombies!!! is far more earnest and intelligent than its title assumes, and a meticulous example of how well indie-rock can resonate when done right.

Bunny - Mothboy

Bunny

Mothboy
Ad Noiseam Records.

SCQ Rating: 69%

Ever since his anonymous demo first landed on Ad Noiseam’s desk, Simon Smerdon (better known as Mothboy) has been an institution for the renowned German imprint, lending his deft trademarks to LPs and remixes alike. So while Bunny, Smerdon’s third Mothboy release, is anticipated for all his glorified fusions, it’s also embraced as a final chapter. Eager to branch off into new musical projects unburdened by his moniker, Smerdon has chosen to retire the Mothboy name for the foreseeable future, leaving Bunny as a generous parting gift.

You don’t need to step far into Bunny’s world to feel Smerdon’s restlessness. Besides an atmospheric opener, ‘Move (Too Close)’ kicks proceedings off with rapper Equivalant dropping rhymes over Mothboy’s signature deep bass, while ‘Motion Control’ takes on verse/chorus structures with the aid of Sezrah Sylvan’s vocals. Alongside more familiar instrumentals like the ominous ‘Cala Nova’, this variety gels rather well, sequenced like a nocturnal mash-up split between going clubbing or walking the streets alone. Even if you prefer one type of Mothboy track over another, there’s no denying ‘Won’t’, which finds Smerdon putting jazz touches on classic trip-hop plodding.

Restlessness creates an excitedly unstable symmetry for Bunny’s first half, but spirals into uncertain experiments soon after. It’s difficult to fault Mothboy with some of the misfires that follow, like ‘Johnny Nemo’, which would be promising if not for Akira The Don’s grating presence. Yet so much of Bunny’s back-end feels tossed together like a clearance counter, from vacuous beat exercises (‘Glow’) to a misguided attempt at a rock song (‘My Love’). When the record rebounds late with ‘Cala Martina’, forming raw guitar and organ around bold break-beats, and ‘Subway Song’, a track that hammers home how well Robert Conroy’s vocals would’ve sounded throughout, these tracks almost feel like missed opportunities. Bunny, like past Mothboy efforts, displays no shortage of skill and charisma but it’s a shame the critter got so bloody self-destructive half-way through.

Cerulean - Baths

Cerulean

Baths
Anticon Records.

SCQ Rating: 91%

Remember that scene in The Matrix when Agent Smith relates the progression of humanity to the spread of a disease? That’s essentially how listeners have fanned the flames of chill-wave, confusing some euphoric bedroom-pop producers with literally any lone musician who composes on a laptop. Seriously, when you look back through the years at the rise of home-listening electronica, wasn’t chill-wave already brewing? Shit, does this make Ulrich Schnauss a pioneer in more ways than one? I’m no chill-wave hater; the slang-genre’s prolific blur of new talent by-the-hour can be immersing, but I’m offended by how quickly it appropriates a singular talent like Baths and groups the young beats-smith into its trendy, recycled army.

Chill-wave may not be self-aware (yet…) so, in the meantime, I’ll seek to protect Cerulean, a strikingly distinct collection of beatific sentiments, from falling in with such homogenous company. Behind the Baths name is Will Wiesenfeld, an until-recently unknown songwriter barely into his twenties, who has utilized the crossover appeal of Four Tet with organic electronics positively dripping into hip-hop foundations. In fact, the great divide between these two artists actually works in Wiesenfeld’s favour; whereas Kieran Hebden’s deftly merged styles articulate Four Tet’s instrumentals, Wiesenfeld emotes through the dual talents of poignant arrangements and a naturally gifted singing voice. Although listening for the interaction between human and electronic instruments unlocks half the potency of Cerulean, we’re most awe-struck when both are given space to breathe on a single track (as with ‘♥’ , which expands a rich piano-loop into lovelorn lyrical verses).

Despite Cerulean often packaging its vulnerability into extroverted beats (‘Lovely Bloodflow’) or stylishly layered vocals (‘You’re My Excuse to Travel’), its essence lies in delicate balladry that results in low-key highlights like ‘Rain Smell’ and ‘Departure’. Unguarded sentimentality has a bad rep in indie-circles, almost certainly as a knee-jerk reaction to the radio-success schmaltz typically pulls off, so it’s a rare achievement that Baths communicates longing with such fresh yet accessible determination. Nothing about this feels fleeting or of-the-moment, marooned to blogger merits or aesthetic scenes. Compulsory listening from front-to-back, Cerulean is undoubtedly one of the year’s best records.

Tiger Flower Circle Sun - Christopher Willits

Tiger Flower Circle Sun

Christopher Willits
Ghostly International.

SCQ Rating: 67%

Elusive records, oh where to begin? No one’s collection is complete without a few LPs that shun understanding and accessibility, albums you spin every few months only to relive their intrinsic novelty. No stranger to the outer limits of musical exploration, Christopher Willits’ latest effort is in many ways one of his most welcoming, full of warm tones and bristling beats, yet be warned: passing its open gates may lead to an open canvas, unfettered by passages or directions. In keeping with many of his twenty or so releases, Tiger Flower Circle Sun roams freely through organic electronica, soft glitchiness and curious dream-pop, at once everywhere and nowhere.

As with its title’s word association, Tiger Flower Circle Sun’s sequencing has grown strong thanks to Willit’s mysticism, which allows the live-drum kicking ‘Sun Body’ or choral-based ‘Green Faces’ to blossom from neighbouring ambient pieces. And while surprising turns aren’t uncommon – take the deformed folk that backs Willits’ affecting vocals on ‘Light Into Branches’ – they tend to hide out inside aurally elaborate soundscapes that steer clear of melodic arches. Sometimes these digital beds create convincing plateaus that benefit the whole, as on ‘Uplifting the Streets’ and the CD/mp3 bonus track ‘Flowers Into Stardust’, but elsewhere these instrumentals pulsate on stagnant repetition, rendering ‘The Hands Connect To the Heart’ and ‘The Heart Connects To the Head’ two cerebral codas worth passing over. Willits’ muse, both sonically and philosophically, calls to mind the catalog of White Rainbow (aka Adam Forkner), as many aspects of this release could reasonably be Forkner disassembling epic tracks down to purposeful gears that either loiter or churn out crucial tempo switches. In its fragmented form, however, Tiger Flower Circle Sun seems unwilling to unveil any trajectory or moment-of-realization. All that's epic is how lost we can become.

It’s a commendable but compromising decision to take, and Tiger Flower Circle Sun saddles the cohesive and inexplicable quite naturally. This evenness - Willits’ steady hand, if you will - ensures a collection that will confound and reward you. In my eyes, the only downside to elusive records isn’t the frustration but the initial disappointment – when nothing quite clicks and you’re tempted to move on – that sometimes abandons these mysteries before they’ve matured. Be hasty with this album at your own risk!

Shit Camera Exposé: Apollo Ghosts / Dog Day (Raw Sugar Café)

Years ago, SCQ decided not to review live shows because watching a band critically and attempting to translate the evening’s mood into a blog-post inevitably distracted me from savoring the moment and socializing.

Going to shows alone is different, though. Sure, you react strangely between sets on instinct, wandering the venue to keep occupied, fidgeting through your bag to avoid doing nothing. But there’s also a freedom when friends aren’t locking you in, shoulder-to-shoulder. Nothing prevents you from moving seats several times during a show, taking nonsense pictures with your shit camera, or viewing the venue and its happenings like an undisturbed fly on the wall. Maybe I want to review live shows after all. Introducing Shit Camera Exposé:

No sooner had I walked into Raw Sugar Café, nestled humbly in Ottawa’s Chinatown, when I was escorted out by a leaping, cape-adorned man and his small tribe of dancing fans. Meet Adrian Teacher, vocalist and guitarist for Apollo Ghosts, the Vancouver-based trio who opened the night's bill. Superhero façade aside, Teacher seemed to possess the energy of a grade-school educator (which he is...?), pointing out show-goers to participate, and after our impromptu jog around a Chinese pavilion out front, I caught how that vigor propelled the band’s performance.

Chugging through a tougher version of ‘To A Friend Who Has Been Through a War’ and dedicating ‘Salmon Capital’, their “prog-rock song if we could do prog-rock”, to Dog Day’s Seth Smith, Apollo Ghosts brought Mount Benson to life with all of that record’s quirky yelps and tight riffs. If you were aching for something brooding or insular, this set would’ve exiled you to the bar. Hell, if you got any closer to the stage, Teacher would’ve made you carry him throughout the band’s throw-down of ‘Things You Go Through’. I should know; I was responsible for his legs.

Drag that so much of the audience seemed oblivious to the material, though, as I typically had to prompt clapping after each song cause nobody knew how short these tracks are independently. No kidding, I kinda felt sorry for a lot of these onlookers, who were unable to mentally stitch Apollo Ghosts’ minute-long jams into the greater sequencing of Mount Benson's weirdo-majesty. Those in the know caught their contagious buoyancy straightaway and I was pleased to catch a few people carrying Mount Benson vinyl after the set.

No matter what show I attend, there’s always a chick wearing a red dress so tight she can hardly stand, yet dancing anyway. Raw Sugar Café had one of those, as well as several aside-worthy curios that seemed out-of-place for a rock venue. About the size of my apartment and scattered with peculiar chairs and retro vinyl couches, the setting appeased an intimate, albeit sweating, crowd. Having last seen Dog Day play a raucous gig at the expansive Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, I couldn’t imagine how they’d finesse their songs for such quaint quarters.

It ended up being a non-issue since Dog Day are touring as the paired-down duo of Smith and Nancy Urich. Explaining early to the crowd that they’ve moved into the woods outside Halifax and abandoned mankind, Dog Day (Smith on guitar, Urich on drums, and occasionally trading places) launched into a mob of new tracks that sounded as urgent as their Concentration material, if more groove-oriented. And although I’d scored what was easily the most embarrassing chair on site (leopard-print with metallic armrests, yes), I couldn’t remain seated when fresh songs like ‘Final Fight’ (available to stream on their Myspace) and ‘Living In the Woods’ (working title, maybe) pounded so savagely, yet so vulnerably.

Smith rocked some wonderfully discordant solos while Urich stared excitedly forward during each song, nearly frothing over her drum-kit. Ending the set with an outstanding trilogy of tracks – a new one sung by Urich, ‘Stray’ off Concentration, and an extended ‘Warm Regards’ from New Problems – Dog Day gave a thoroughly promising glimpse of their future as a duo. Promising because, from all accounts, nothing crucial has changed. Smith’s songwriting, his and Urich’s subdued vocal exchanges; that’s what Dog Day has always been, and thankfully what unflinchingly remains.

I’ll miss their on-stage axe-battles, but who knows what future tours will look like. Smith openly admits that they had barely a month to prep for this current excursion westward from SappyFest, and that Urich learned the drums in that tight span of time. For something born under such pressure, Dog Day has never looked so natural.

Architecture - Glass Graves

Architecture

Glass Graves
Bandcamp.

SCQ Rating: 81%

What’s harder to believe: that nobody had thought up a moniker as awesome as Glass Graves before now, or that the sound of its debut has garnered the term “witch-house” as a means of classification? Sigh. Works like Architecture, a heavy swirl of dreamy vocals and decaying arrangements, discredit any attempts at labeling – whether made-up or established – for no better reason than that these records exist on the periphery of what is recognizable and intangible. Like a cloudy wine, Glass Graves (aka Gaby Graves) create unsettled compositions that feel dangerous because they’re intoxicating, or maybe vice versa.

To the credit of “witch-house” believers everywhere, Architecture indeed sounds haunted, even without knowing that Graves recorded the debut in a derelict farmhouse during a week-long snowstorm. Although her vocals call to mind the exiled-angel figureheads of early 4AD (This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins), her compositions dig through muddy crypts with desperation too visceral for starry-eyed wandering. ‘Sister Dream’ creeps out its tender ambience while a spritely piano behind ‘Lila Tov’ could’ve brightened the record’s second-half had the razor-sharp guitar underneath not been menacing the whole time. There’s no questioning, though, how Graves’ guitar makes Architecture the head-turning success it is; what would ‘Corrine’ have been without that distorted crest? How would ‘Glass Lips’ have countered those gorgeous vocals without some six-string growl on the low-end?

The combination, her speaker-blown vocals interacting with blunted lo-fi arrangements, occasionally creates the aural illusion that you’re hearing each half of a song being executed in different rooms, one slightly closer than the other. Her beautiful, anxiety-free take on Atlas Sound’s ‘Quarantined’ attests to this alluring disconnect, as the song’s familiar hook lies buried under sparse beds of shimmering bleeps. As a cover, it also fits eerily well to her self-recorded songs of isolation. Haunted farmhouse or not, these diligent techniques give Architecture a powerful aura, making it all the more captivating.

Switching For a Living - Cignol

Switching For a Living

Cignol
Alphabet Set Records.

SCQ Rating: 73%

Around this time last year, SCQ was blindsided by Red Box Recorder’s Colour Codes, a multi-layered genre-hop on all of electronica’s best-kept headphone secrets. The month of August must have some zodiac-inspired significance for anonymous-and-Irish beat-makers, then, because Cignol presents a clear showcase of talent on the crafty Switching For a Living.

As restless as Colour Codes but adhering to a more nuanced flow, Switching For a Living runs the gamut over its eleven tracks, delving into cinematic acid-house (‘Horizons’), pastoral beat-weaving (on the Boards of Canada-inspired ‘Sitruk’), and organic-infused chill-out (‘Tumnal’). As capably as Cignol can evoke airy loops and ear-pleasing stutters, his forte inarguably remains mixing these elements into acid concoctions. Borrowing from Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works famous playbook, ‘Role Player’ and ‘Nite Garden’ thrive by imbedding migrant atmospheres over some hard-hat noodling. The quality is remarkably consistent, if rarely thrilling, but what Cignol seems to edit from this album is a palpable sense of personality. At eleven tracks and forty-five minutes in length, Switching For a Living is well-sequenced and perfectly consumable as textbook acid-house. Without any idiosyncrasies or surprises to speak of, however, Cignol’s work seems destined to remain a pleasant discovery in a static genre.

Touch the Sky EP - Radical Face

Touch the Sky EP

Radical Face
Morr Music Records.

SCQ Rating: 74%

As a bridge between 2007’s Ghost and the upcoming Family Tree series, Touch the Sky tours the EP format’s rules of engagement rather unabashedly. When viewed as a mere stop-gap release, it covers key bases with reworked material from the debut and misfit tracks that won’t score into the sequencing of the upcoming records. As recycled as some of these tracks may sound on paper, Radical Face (aka Ben Cooper) has yet to treat his oeuvre carelessly and Touch the Sky EP is another considered addition to his burgeoning life-narrative.

Doubling as an extended single for the track ‘Welcome Home’, the EP opens on familiar ground before Cooper presents alternate nods to the past that will certainly woo fans of the wonderful Ghost. An acoustic retelling of ‘Glory’ gives up the original’s epic bombast without losing its punch-to-the-gut emotional power and ‘Doorways’, an instrumental B-side from the Patients project, appears re-imagined with vocals and a stunning chorus. It’s the ideal "doorway" (sorry, had to...) to walk out of Ghost and into the unknown future, foreshadowed promisingly with new tracks ‘A Little Hell’ and ‘The Deserter’s Song’. Epitomizing the EP’s focus on childhood, the lyrics over ‘A Little Hell’ hide its knack as a credible establishing shot, what with its harvest crows and scarce piano. When ‘The Deserter’s Song’ rises from distant thunder to an urgent crown of percussion, keys and layered vocals, that autumnal impression only gets stronger, its beauty rooted in something damned or sinister.

For better reasons than being the only new composition that approaches the five-minute mark, ‘A Deserter’s Song’ is a worthy centerpiece for this EP because it vividly merges the small-town palette of Ghost with a sound both foreign and exciting. In an EP preoccupied with youth, it’s also the coming-of-age track we thought Cooper had already perfected. With a trilogy of Radical Face albums on the horizon, Touch the Sky EP is an enjoyable listen, but hardly a mandatory one. Still, I can't think of a single Radical Face / Electric President fan who'll want to miss this...

Rural Route No. 2 - Kyle Bobby Dunn

Rural Route No.2

Kyle Bobby Dunn
Standard Form Records.

SCQ Rating: 78%

As someone who’d never heard of Kyle Bobby Dunn before 2010, I had the great fortune to discover the composer’s work through A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn, a double LP that collected Fervency (a 2009 Moodgadget release) with over sixty minutes of unreleased tracks from those same sessions. And yes, I’m aware that by describing Dunn as a composer, I’m putting him in league with some of ambient’s finest tightrope-walkers, like Stars Of the Lid or Brian Eno. I’m comfortable with that, as Rural Route No.2 handily pushes Dunn’s two sonic poles – noise-laced urgency and pristine calm - to new levels of emotional richness.

That may seem like a feat for a release that clocks barely twenty minutes in all, but Dunn has never let limitations diminish his reach. He’s a minimalist, after all, and although both tracks here wander a static purgatory, we listeners receive occasional channels that direct us through Dunn’s devious narrative. If not for the EP’s actual narrative - that of Dunn’s return to a childhood home and all of the pale memories it recalls – first track ‘Dissonant Distances’ could’ve made an excellent title to these faraway recollections. Bathed in soft, industrial tones and at one point honing in on what sounds like a nostalgic radio signal, ‘Dissonant Distances’ would feel sterile if not for its emotional crests. That same ebb and flow runs through ‘Senium III’, only less obstructed by conflicted memories and more at ease with the ghostly beauty of nostalgia.

Overdue to take a Greyhound bus to my own hometown, I let Rural Route No. 2 accompany me when my passenger-seat caught the first of Toronto’s smog-riddled skyline. And in the way these two longform tracks expand then curl, speak up and then cut themselves off, I remembered the city in a scattershot of half-memories that showcase, with impassive precision, how it felt to live there. ‘Senium III’ has that rare ability to beckon buried thoughts and merit them with the appropriate significance. Like nostalgia itself, it's a wonderful place to wallow so long as you don’t live there.

Our Inventions - Lali Puna

Our Inventions

Lali Puna
Morr Music Records.

SCQ Rating: 59%

Like anyone half interested in the cause, I’ve read my share of “R.I.P. Music Journalism” articles and essays, admittedly splitting my attention between the viewpoint and whom the viewpoint belongs to. For the most part, the cynicism launched toward music-writers, be they real journalists or bloggers, feels biased and lifeless to me but, every so often, someone comes along and hits the nail on the head. Whoever commented “R.I.P. Music Journalism” on the Drowned In Sound review for Lali Puna’s new record, I commend thee. (Full disclosure: it wasn’t me, but only because I haven't registered for a DIS account. I tweeted my repulsion over it a day earlier.) Quoting Drowned In Sound, whose opinion I usually respect:

“We’re past making excuses for electronica now, right? The novelty of creating music without traditional instruments has worn off, so we demand sonic invention, excellent writing or emotional punch from musicians choosing laptops over guitars. On this basis: Epic fail, Lali Puna.”

One doesn’t need to hear Our Inventions to detect the bias and overall laziness in this opening paragraph but listening to the band’s long-awaited follow-up to Faking the Books does place reviews like this in a unique light. Compared to that 2006 predecessor which featured robust rock dynamics loaded with spiky guitar and weighty live-drums, Our Inventions IS lacking. Having shied away from their spot on the indie-tronic mantle, Lali Puna seem content to experiment under Morr’s twee-umbrella, doling out intricate and studied electro-pop instead. Several of these tracks manage propulsive or melodic hooks able to catch us off-guard, like the futuristic nursery-rhyme of ‘Safe Tomorrow’ and the tender lilt ‘That Day’, but the record loiters an unforgiving middle-ground that no doubt attracts lugheads who instinctively believe electronica is crutched on sympathies. Our Inventions represents its genre’s attributes as wholly as, say, Chinese Democracy represents rock music’s and although I can’t understand grieving one’s passive-aggressive genre stereotypes on a subpar record, I can acknowledge how albums this indifferent can bolster the opinion of people who treat electronica with ignorance. Music journalism, hobble on!

This Weilheim-based group deserves closer attention as fervently as fans deserve something worth talking about. Besides an obvious shift toward low-key balladry and feather-lite pop noodling, Our Inventions is a conversation-killer, as even highlights like ‘Remember’ connect so instantly because we’ve heard their compositional gears at work before (courtesy of Morr-associated acts like The Notwist and MS. John Soda). For all the critics intent on judging Lali Puna’s latest as a microcosm of electronica’s credibility, Our Inventions comes off as little more than a quaint bedroom record. And considering how this is a band responsible for at least two forward-thinking albums of the past decade, maybe that’s exactly what they were aiming to accomplish.