Amiina – Puzzle

Read my review here on News Hit!

In A Better World

Read my review here on News Hit

Pigeon John – Dragon Slayer

A far cry from the rapper/hip-hop artist cliché that goes on and on about drugs, homies, “bootylicious babes at da club” and rising up against the odds, Pigeon John sings and raps about topics that are much more relatable and down-to-earth; the importance of family, feeling betrayed and learning how to be comfortable in your own skin.

Pigeon John’s seventh studio album, Dragon Slayer, opens up with the fun, high-energy track The Bomb. Although he is categorised as predominantly a hip-hop artist, this western-tinged song — featuring tambourine and hand-claps — is more pop than hip-hop. The same can be said of the whole album; among the rap verses, catchy pop melodies are aplenty. While The Bomb makes for a good opening track, it doesn’t particularly stand out as a highlight of the album.

Speaking of ‘highlights’, there are very few. You can spot them easily because the rest of the songs just fade into the background upon comparison with them. One such standout track is Dude, It’s On; slower and more laidback than most other tracks on the album, with a chilled, harmonised verse and groove-inducing chorus, it manages to achieve cohesiveness while keeping the listener interested (which is where some of the other tracks fail). With its staccato bass, glitchy keyboard sounds, sparkly xylophone, and brass that lifted the conclusion of the song wonderfully, Dude, It’s On is the essential feel-good, lazy summer Sunday anthem.

Read the rest of my review on NewsHit.

Warpaint – The Fool

No matter where you are, listening to Warpaint’s debut album, The Fool, will create the illusion that you are boxed inside an echoic chamber. Haunting vocals, sensual basslines, sultry drum beats and creeping, overlapping guitar riffs combine to form a dreamy, atmospheric haze.

The experimental art rock quartet hailing from Los Angeles also weaves together lush harmonies, courtesy of three female vocalists. The instrumentation is often sparse, getting fuller as the song progresses. The juxtaposition of soft vocals against the harsher bass and guitar tones results in a darker, brooding vibe, as can be heard in Majesty.

Official music video for Undertow.

The first single off the album, Undertow, demonstrates Warpaint’s ability to create different textures within a single song; from its chillwave-tinged beginning, it gradually builds until vocalist Emily Kokal’s crooning erupts into wailing, and the song becomes an almost ethereal experience.

While many of Warpaint’s songs flirt with sounds of dischord, the beautiful and raw Baby stands out as a lullaby, consisting of only gorgeous layered vocals that rise and fall in rounds and a gently-plucked acoustic guitar. The lyrics are as intimate as the music that supports them: “Don’t you call anybody else baby, ’cause I’m your baby still. / … You speak your fears, thinking in circles and checking what mirrors don’t see. / You live your life like a page from the book of my fantasy.”

If you fancy psychedelic, rhythmic, slightly syncopated music that is sometimes animalistic and other times softly hypnotic, with honest yet vaguely cryptic lyrics, then Warpaint’s stunning debut will have you captivated from the first listen.

8/10

(link to News Hit article) 

Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People EP

Sufjan Stevens’ new EP All Delighted People is not like most EPs.

Firstly, it features eight songs, and runs for about an hour. Secondly, it has two vastly different versions of the same song, the title track (the Original Version and the Classic Rock Version). According to the official release, the epic ballad is “a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s Sounds of Silence”.

The EP opens with the original version of All Delighted People. Joined by the sweet, almost heavenly backing vocals of a choir, Stevens takes us on a twelve-minute-long journey through a multitude of emotions: hope, as the song begins with only the choir accompanying Stevens’ gentle crooning, and builds as strings are introduced; a quiet, repressed desperation as a brass section provides a slow, gloomy timbre; discordant sounds signifying dissatisfaction and loneliness; tenderness and a yearning for human connection (“And what difference does it make? / I love you so much anyway. / And on your breast I gently laid. / Your arms surround me in the lake, / I am joined with you forever”) through the soft fall and climb of the melody, Stevens’ breathy falsetto and the echoes of the choir; disillusionment through the repetition of “All delighted people raise their hands”; until finally, we feel a paradoxical mixture of apathy and anguish as Stevens wails, “I tried to save the things I made / Oh, but the world is a mess. / And what difference does it make if the world is a mess? / I tried my best, I tried in vain” and the song concludes with a somewhat unsettling screeching of violin cutting through the choir’s exclamation of “Suffer not the child among you or shall you die young”. Existential ennui indeed. The classic rock version of the song is commendable, but is largely overshadowed by the original version.

Stevens explores electronic effects and sounds more on this EP than on his previous releases. However, he has still managed to retain the whimsical, acoustic-folk charm that his fans adore about him. From the Mouth of Gabriel subtly exemplifies how Stevens is branching out from his classic style to incorporate eccentric electro noises into his arrangements. Among the nostalgic, tinkling toy piano, bird-like flute, and percussion reminiscent of children’s instruments, there are a few surprising synth sounds that are used sparingly but effectively. The lullaby-esque tone of the song contrasts with the lyrics, which suggest a kind of lost innocence or regret over the past: “Your face has changed, / I hardly know who you are this time. / And what a mess I’ve made of you. / You probably would but I won’t let you run away.”

The All Delighted People EP ends with the epic 17-minute-long jam Djohariah. During the first third of the song, an erratic guitar line is used as a character instead of a lead vocal line, which seems to get more and more frantic until the rhythm and feel of the song changes somewhat abruptly, before a reprise of the initial third, with added instruments. The verses begin at around the 12-minute mark, and Stevens’ incredible tone and control as he coos “Go on, little sister! Go on! / For the world is yours, the world is yours / All the wilderness of the world is yours to enjoy” is worth waiting for. Djohariah is another good example of how Stevens is mixing his well-loved signature indie-pop arrangements with a fresh, electronic edge.

Only three of the eight tracks on the EP are at or under four minutes long. However, Stevens’ song-writing renders length an irrelevant detail (for example, with Djohariah); the magic of his compositions is vastly due to the way he cleverly crafts and fits together the pieces and details to create a story. His lyrics read like poetry and the melodies in his songs work with each other; at times the instrumentation is bare or subtle, to emphasise the purity of Stevens’ vocals, and at times builds up to an almost overwhelming hurricane of sound. The thing with many of Stevens’ songs is that they sound simple on the surface, because of recurring main melody lines, but when you deconstruct the elements, the complexity of the song-writing is apparent. That’s what makes this EP, and indeed Stevens’ work in general, such a joy to listen to; each time you listen to a song, you are surprised by something you hadn’t noticed previously.

10/10

You can download All Delighted People EP off Sufjan Steven’s bandcamp page here, for US$5.

You can also click here to download a couple of free tracks (Too Much and I Walked) that are featured on Sufjan Steven’s highly anticipated upcoming album, The Age of Adz.

(Published on News Hit 19/09/10)