Releases Archives - Page 9 of 18 -

September 1, 2017September 1, 2017

ALBUM: Music from Before the Storm – Daughter 01.09.17

Words by Ed King / Pic by Sonny Malhotra

As double edged swords go…

On 1^st September, Daughter release a new album – Music from Before the Storm, out digitally via 4AD.

Now those with more gaming savvy than I will know what I’m about to type next, but for the blindsided Daughter fans I must offer some quick clarification. This is not a ‘new album’ new album; it’s a soundtrack to the prequel of Deck Nine/Square Enix’s episodic graphic adventure, Life is Strange. I am not counting this. Not fully, anyway.

So why the review? Especially whilst being as full of hubris, Mario Kart memories and ‘issues’ around soundtrack commissions as I can be. Because it’s from Daughter, a band (as I admitted to 4AD’s press office) I would ‘probably follow under a truck’. Plus the last time I wrote about the shoe gazing musketeers was for their previous album release, Not to Disappear, so in the interests of continuity (if not objectivity) I settle down with a mug of imaginary coco and press play.

A familiar laconic twang, brooding production, scarred vocals… so far so good; ‘Glass’ takes us into what could well have been the end of the triptych I’ve been waiting nearly two years to hear. Then a growling introduction and declarations of isolation bring us into track two, ‘Burn down’; aside from a somewhat pan Atlantic lexicon, this could have been a well played part of Not to Disappear.

‘Flaws’ opens with some welcome and restrained ivory, always good to have keys, until a minute later and we are clawing our way out of something and standing triumphant on top of something else. I guess the game play will fill in the blanks. ‘Hope’ follows a similar trajectory, although with more of a march and Tonra’s vocals making a staggered cameo towards the end.

The rest of Music from Before the Storm follows the same album track style sheet – aside from ‘Burn it Down’, ‘All I Wanted’ and ‘A Hole in the Earth’ we are led by the spectre of Spector (…it’s a wall of sound pun) with only vocal embellishment.

But thirteen tracks long, with ‘three songs from Daughter’s back catalogue’ also featured in the game, Music from Before the Storm is not a half hearted affair. And you can tell, from the first mournful guitar string to the last thundercloud crescendo, that this is Daughter. But it’s also a side project – an exercise in production that screams, figuratively and at points literally, of the combined efforts from this exceptional three piece more with any desperate identity.

The narrative for Life is Strange – namely determined teen angst learning to play with power – is a near perfect fit, and if it weren’t for the occasional colloquialism and kit glove punch Music from Before the Storm could have passed itself off as album three. Nearly. But this isn’t a pop protégée or an FMCG styled indie affair, this is Daughter. And it must be tough being that good with a public to appease.

So whilst I’ll probably never play the game that brought this to my table, I am now systematically over playing the album; Music from Before the Storm will keep me happy enough, for now. Maybe through Christmas. But when we’re talking over priced green field excursions again…

‘Burn it Down’ – Daughter, as featured on Music from Before the Storm

Music from Before the Storm by Daughter is out from 1^st September, released by 4AD in partnership with Square Enix. For more on Daughter, visit www.ohdaughter.com

Before the Storm: Life is Strange is out from 31^st August, for more details click here www.lifeisstrange.com

For more from 4AD, visit www.4ad.com

August 18, 2017

ALBUM: Turning Tides – Wildwood Kin

Words by Katherine Priddy

As a female folk musician myself, it’s always exciting to hear how other young women in the trade are leaving their mark. It’s also the first time I have come across Wildwood Kin’s music, but upon checking out their website prior to listening to the album I was impressed to see they had reached the final four of the BBC Young Folk Musician awards, as well as left awash with good words from respected names in the industry. These two sisters and their cousin appear to be grabbing the folk world by its Aran jumper and giving it a good shake.

My fault, then, for researching Wildwood Kin before giving their debut album a listen. But I was slightly surprised, and dare I say disappointed, to find that Turning Tides isn’t the hollering crème de la crème of female folk I was anticipating.

With their gorgeous Joni Mitchell-esque appearances and a name like Wildwood Kin – a nod to their folk inspirations as well as their familial connection, I imagined Turning Tides would be more acoustic, organic and experimental. However going into the studio proffers an opportunity to develop your sound and explore the possibilities of the music you create; Wildwood Kin made the decision to move away from their folk roots, nurtured in small venues around Devon and Exeter, and pushed forwards into realms of synths, electric guitar and atmospheric production.

It would be wrong of me to pooh-pooh a piece of work that clearly had a great deal of time and love poured into it, purely on the basis that it isn’t the folk music I was expecting. Indeed, their use of harmonies is commendable; all three voices blend together perfectly and create some beautiful melodies that do still bear the traces of a traditional origin and draw an obvious comparison with The Staves, though more pop. These vocals are demonstrated best in ‘The Valley’, the album’s penultimate track, where there is a lot less of the studio production, reverb and atmospheric frills that dominate the rest of the LP.

That’s not to say that the other album tracks on Turning Tides aren’t worth a listen. ‘Warrior Daughter’ has a driving rhythm and the organic sound of the clapping adds to the track’s dynamism. The lyrics too are positive and uplifting, a theme that runs throughout the album, harking back to the ladies’ gospel and worship music inspiration. ‘Steady My Heart’ also has a little more guts than some of the more saccharine songs, whilst the title track makes great use of a double bass to cut through the atmospheric, dreamy effects to offer a possibility of something more raw and powerful.

Turning Tides is an apt name for an album that shows a brave retraction from the old and an embrace of the new. It requires guts to change your sound, and I take my hat off to Wildwood Kin for taking that plunge. Despite not being the folk music that their past led me to expect, Wildwood Kin have created an debut album of sweet melodies and soft pop anthems that, whilst not breaking any great boundaries and doing anything wildly radical, are easily listenable and well-constructed.

I still feel the passion that was present during the song-writing process has been somewhat stultified by the addition of synths and heavy reverb, causing some of the tracks to blur into one another and keeping the raw climax that they seem to be building towards frustratingly out of reach. I would be interested to hear Wildwood Kin completely stripped back to acoustic guitars, drums and their haunting voices, which really are their best selling points and need no great embellishment.

‘Taking a Hold’ – Wildwood Kin

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‘The Valley’ – Wildwood Kin (from The Clockwork Owl Sessions)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve6tmAmu7mM

Wildwood Kin release their debut album, Turning Tides, on Friday 18^th August – out via Sony Silverstone. For more on Wildwood Kin, visit www.wildwoodkin.com

June 9, 2017June 9, 2017

ALBUM: Binary – Ani DiFranco

Words by Ed King / Pics by Katja Ogrin – taken at The Glee Club for Birmingham Review

On Friday 9^th June, Ani DiFranco releases her latest studio album, Binary – out on Righteous Babe Records and Aveline Records.

Touring the UK, Ani DiFranco will be performing at the Birmingham Town Hall on 30^th June. Doors open at 7:30pm, with tickets priced at £28 (+booking fee) – for direct gig info, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

Ani DiFranco’s twentieth solo studio album… just let that sink in for a while, Binary is rooted in the principle ‘that nothing can truly exist except in relationship with something else.’ As Flaubert propagated, truth is just an individual’s perception of the subject. So we’re all right and all wrong. Kinda.

Galvanized by the seesaw co-dependency of most modern democracies, Ani DiFrancio has given Big ‘P’ politics an unashamed spotlight on her latest LP – turning her attention to the machinations and administrations that control everything from foreign policy to what a woman can do with her body (check the video to ‘Play God’ below). None of these topics are ever off the table with DiFranco, but the shift that Binary makes is about being more than just a personal context – and this, to a member of the post Pax Britannica generation, self publishing on the day a duel of fear and anger filled rhetoric ended in a hung parliament, feels like a pertinent move.

The title track opens the album and outlines this concept, with some Latin beat percussion to hold your hand along the way (I think Maceo Parker is in there too but I haven’t got an inlay card to check). Next up the six string story returns with ‘Pacifist’s Lament’, as DiFranco and a subtle horn section implore us to “stop in the middle of a battle and say you’re sorry” and not run to the solitary ideology of our “prime evil caves”. Love your neighbor, I guess. Even when you don’t like the colour of their pin badge.

There’s some beautiful production on Binary as a whole, with the ‘Little Folksinger’ of albums past embracing a wider ensemble for a much richer sound. Nothing new with this (circa Knuckle Down, at least) and whilst I’ll always be a fan of the raw edge this recording room maturity gives weight to the message Binary is delivering. And track three, the dreamlike ‘Zizzing’, reminds me of The Velvet Underground’s outtake homage to the big blue… never a bad thing. That and our responsibility to (and culpability for) the ever crumbling world.

The problem with politics defining an album, is just that; at best you sound like a garrulous soapbox, at worst you give birth to a one sided manifesto that has no recourse for debate. Most land in the middle.

But what DiFranco has done with Binary is healthier – challenging the predisposition that one side is ever right in absolute and championing the call, even need, for collaborative evolution. To quote the title track: “Consciousness is binary, consciousness is spinning. Consciousness is a circuit when consciousness is winning”. Be they thoughts or mandates, be they liberal or conservative (small caps), if you only listen to one voice then you are pandering to autocracy. It’s that simple.

So Binary is an album that everyone can enjoy, or appreciate, or at least sink their DiFranco dentures into; wherever you want to shove the Electoral College or Northern Ireland Assembly, there’s a seat at this table.

What you make of Binary musically is, of course, up to you. As it should be; as it needs to be. But honestly I’ve only had a chance to listen to the album a few times and would need more plays to make an informed declaration.

Although, in my opinion…

‘Play God’ – Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco releases Binary on 9^th June, through Righteous Babe Records and Aveline Records. Ani DiFranco will be performing at the Birmingham Town Hall on 30^th June – for direct gig info, click here.

For more on Ani DiFranco and the wider Righteous Babe roster, visit www.righteousbabe.com

For more from the Town & Symphony Halls, including venue details and online ticket sales, visit www.thsh.co.uk

May 19, 2017May 19, 2017

ALBUM: Party – Aldous Harding

Words by Ed King / Pic by Hannah & Liv

I could spend half this review trying to come up with a suitable genre, but I won’t. Nouns come and nouns go, whilst adjectives jump around and in front of a puzzling need to define. Goth Folk has been used by Aldous Harding herself, apparently, and I’m not even happy with that.

But if Party – the sophomore album from the New Zealand songwriter – is to be defined by anything, it’s vocals; the range of empathy and emotion that Harding’s voice can conjure is the head wagon in this caravan. From the breathy (almost frightening) ethereal interpersonal whisperings of ‘Blend’ – the album’s opening song, across the Nicoesque timbre of ‘Imagining My Man’, to the see-saw strength and selected high pitch of the title track, Party is an album of controlled extremes. Oh yeah, and dark stories; can’t forget the bittersweet nightmares. And the winner of Best Album Track Title goes to…

But there’s the production too, which supports, matches and carries the sliding scale of this dark to light nine track endevour. With John Parish behind the glass – a man known for his extensive work with PJ Harvey (but keep This Is The Kit, Goldfrapp and M Ward in the back of your mind) – subtlety was always on cards.

And as Parish is so adept at achieving the firm bedrock here is partnership; enough confidence to step back and step up at just the right time. Again, ‘Party’ is an excellent example of this. But in the context of the whole album, when the drip release chords and power ballet vocals of ‘Horizon’ boom out of nowhere it’s impossible not to sit a little straighter. Like you’re awaiting instruction.

Aldous Harding’s eponymous debut was a sterling introduction, to an artist I suspect will have more years and surprises ahead in a carefully crafted trajectory. I hope, anyway. How many people get to open an album with Baudelaire and end with Mervyn Peake? And I’ll admit, the lack of a box-ticking-quick-draw-mainstream-marketing-strategy (née pact with the devil) is incredibly reassuring. I bet Lorde is kicking herself.

You could argue that the ‘cleverness’ with Aldous Harding will be her undoing, you could. You could call for more ‘radio friendly’. You could say that signing a three album deal with any producer backs you into a corner, and sit there waiting for the Faustian duet at an MTV event. It’s happened before. Probably not on 4AD but never say never, right?

Or you could listen, listen again, Google some references, feel foolish for Googling some references and go back to listening. For whatever compels the visceral forces of Aldous Harding’s songwriting I don’t think it wants to live in a box. So we have time and now two albums to play with, to explore an artist who should continue to avoid the iTunes taxonomy and survive on a more personal perception. You can stop reading this review for a start.

‘Imagining My Man’ – Aldous Harding

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Aldous Harding releases Party on 19^th May – out via 4AD. For more on Aldous Harding, including tour info and online sales, visit www.aldousharding.com

For more from 4AD, visit www.4ad.com

May 12, 2017May 12, 2017

EP: ½ – Miccoli

Words by Ed King / Pics from AFA Records

Pronounced ‘half’, on Friday 12^th May Miccoli release their ½ EP through AFA Records – five tracks of solid and somewhat indefinable alternative-pop-indie-soul-generally good music. There isn’t an HMV shelf long enough.

Coming from Halesowen (a quick civic cheer) Miccoli are three siblings: twin brothers Adriano and Alessando, with their sister Francesca. Not really that important to their music but if you ever get invited round for dinner…

Miccoli had been ‘hotly tipped’ some years ago, but due to a nasty case of nearly dying on stage they had to embrace a hiatus and, you know, live. Five years later and the family are back, with some extremely slick looking and sounding material to make up for lost time. Seriously, my first question was which ‘Birmingham’ do you think we ‘Review’ – not that Alabama is the bastion of urban chic, but Miccoli do not present like your usual Midlands music act. They recorded in ‘off the coast of Malaysia’ for Christ’s sake; Robannas, Rich Bitch, Muthers… you get where I’m going with this.

So, polished, belt and braces; check. But are Miccoli any good. Yes. Reassuringly so. Their single ‘Lights’, which was given away in an act of generosity and publicity earlier in May, is a good introduction. Beautifully restrained, a hint of staccato, comfortable addiction behind the melody, the brothers’ lead vocals coated in Francesca’s harmonies; it’s the kind of song you’d pack your life into a car to, and then listen to on repeat until you’ve reached the ocean. Mental note – I must stop doing that. But it works. Then it works again, and again, and again…

‘Idle Stranger’, the EP’s opening track, was the first to be released back in March and may be more your preference. It’s not mine, but it packs a similar punch to ‘Lights’.

Track Two, ‘Undo’, is a variation on a theme, then comes the EP closer – ‘Devices’. A soft goodbye to a new sound; remember the first time you heard an XX track, and it crept into your brain, made a nest in the neural pathways, then dug in with squatter’s rights that would make a Bristol Uni student blush. Yeah, save some cerebral cortex ‘cos it’s happening again.

Miccoli’s ½ EP is out from 12^th May – with a curious selection of tour dates, focusing on America as opposed to the UK. But starting in Liverpool. A schedule that’s slightly unfortunate for this acerbic pen because the Achilles heel will be the live performance. As a wise man once said, when you sound that polished on a CD (they sent out a physical copy, result) it could mean you’re going to suck balls live.

Which, unless I’m prepared to travel to The Viper Room (oh yes, this band mean business) I’m not likely to find out anytime soon. Still there’s probably an album waiting in the wings to distract us. I get the feeling, with Miccoli, after an unscheduled stop in their trajectory, there’s a plan in place. To be continued…

‘Lights’ – Miccoli

On Friday 12^th May, Miccoli release their ½ EP through AFA Records. For more on Miccoli, including full tour details and online purchases, visit www.miccoli.co.uk