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AUDIO AUDIO Killian Barry Zara Hedderman Mike McG
rath-Bryan Jack O’Higgins Killian Barry Zara Hedderman Ian Lamont Jack O’Higgins Sharon Van Etten Remind Me Tomorrow [Jagjaguwar] Low Double Negative [Sub Pop] On the cover of Sharon Van Etten’s fifth album, a scattering of colours – red, purple, blue, yellow – create a scene of two children surrounded by objects that will, undoubtedly, make up the tapestry of their respective childhood memories. Strewn on the carpeted floor, amongst that chaotic landscape, is a picture of the musician. Addressing the past is a key component to Remind Me Tomorrow’s lyrical themes. Whether Van Etten is reflecting on past relationships (No One’s Easy To Love), recounting the universal feeling of being perceived in a certain way and age by family members (Comeback Kid), or retracing the first steps taken towards total independence (Seventeen). Memory is resuscitated, throughout. Remind Me Tomorrow’s captivating palette includes a kaleidoscope of tones – fuzzed bass lines, iridescent synth melodies, and densely tempered percussion. Together, these elements make for Van Etten’s most impactful record. Different to her previous records, the New Jersey native teamedup with producer John Congleton who added a caustic glaze on the instrumentation. His contribution is most evident on Hands and No One’s Easy To Love, both heralding Congleton’s hand on St Vincent’s last two studio albums. With each listen, a different layer reveals itself to the audience. Like the passing of seasons and years, Remind Me Tomorrow’s 41 minutes flashes by in an instant. As the final chords ring out, you’re compelled to relive it, instantly. ZH In the distance, through the haze, you can hear impressions of voices, drums, guitars, pianos, Low songs. Then occasionally – like halfway through Tempest – things clear up, and it feels precisely as if your head has emerged from underwater to either a moment of hopeful placidity or the eye of a storm. Aside from the fact that they have employed this deliberate grotesquery in such an elegant and musical way, it feels so wonderfully brave and emotionally apposite for the times Low find themselves in. A belter. IL Like this? Try these: St Vincent - St Vincent Mitski - Be The Cowboy Phantastic Ferniture - Phantastic Ferniture Like this? Try these: Fennesz — Venice GAS — Königsforst Bon Iver — 22, A Million Low have always been a consistently good band who do their thing well. Their minimalism centres not on the boundless empty spaces of techno, or the riveting repetition and transformation of 20th century composers, but on a song-based approach fashioned from restraint and delicacy. 25 years into their career however, Low’s 12th album is their most extreme sounding, yet one which immediately makes sense. BJ Burton acted as producer on both this and Low’s previous record, Ones and Sixes, which now appears like the first steps towards the immersive sonic space Double Negative occupies. That is to say this record sounds damaged. Bashed, bruised, beaten, bloodied, burnt and beleaguered. Rather than simply recording some distortions, Low have distorted the very recording itself. Burton’s contributions to Bon Iver’s 22, A Million, which also features a damaged media aesthetic to great effect, feel pertinent. Nicholas Britell If Beale Street Could Talk OST [Lakeshore Records] Animal Collective Tangerine Reef [Domino] Britell has collaborated once more with Barry Jenkins after his Oscar-nominated score for Moonlight. The results are frequently gorgeous, and go a long way in selling the romance at the core of the film. Eden (Harlem) features beautiful strings that tug at the heartstrings. The Children of Our Age captures the crushing inevitability of black poverty in the 1970s, while Storge depicts the pain of a loved one being incarcerated. It’s little surprise that it’s led to Britell’s second Oscar nomination. JOH Of the many unnerving aspects of Tangerine Reef, Animal Collective’s 11th record and first without Panda Bear, the most striking of them is that it sounds like Arcade Fire’s Win Butler took care of vocal duties. Aside from this imagined nightmare, this record is drenched in immersive and exceptionally spacious arrangements inspired by the vastness and ecology of the reef. Mostly comprised of unhinged synthetic timbres this isn’t the Baltimore experimentalists most accessible or exciting releases in their canon. Instead, the band sound pained and agitated. ZH Bouts Flow [Wonky Karousel] Blood Orange Negro Swan [Domino] When a quartet disassembles across Europe and Asia, a static period is inevitable to facilitate adjustment. Bouts, the predominantly Dublin-based band return with their long-awaited second album Flow, a frenetic offering informed by infectious indie melodies. Throughout the nine tracks, the band’s sound embodies the vibrancy akin to that contained within a bag of Skittles – colourful and leaving you wanting more when you reach the end. The exuberance of Sounds Like Theft, in particular, will certainly make for a highlight in their live set. ZH Negro Swan, the fourth record from Dev Hynes as Blood Orange, captures New York City living through eloquent monologues and slumberous R’n’B beats gleaning with throwback instrumentation and production values. Again providing fans with an expansive array of catchy songs, 16 in total, Hynes masters commerciality without compromising his artistry. Collaborators on Negro Swan include A$Ap Rocky, Diddy and Steve Lacy, the producer and artist that has a golden touch on everything he lends his hand to. ZH Fidlar Almost Free [Dine Alone Records] Idles Joy as an Act of Resistance [Partisan Records] Post-Punk Podge and the Technohippies Post-Millennial Tension [Self-Release] Mitski Be the Cowboy [Dead Oceans] Fidlar are a dab hand at bubblegum bops, so although the lo-fi skate punks went all-in on radiofriendly hooks last time out, their third record goes wider still in scope, with arrangements incorporating horns and Beastie Boys vibes. Scuzzy remnants of vintage Fidlar prevent blunting that garage rock edge, but the Californian four-piece have mostly outgrown cavalier tales celebrating being recklessly drunk, high and broke. Producer Ricky Reed’s pop sensibilities indicate a further left turn for the band, granting us some tight, energetic pop-punk without entirely neutering the Fidlar of old. KB At a moment of obsolescence for guitar bands, it’s reassuring to hear a group with credibility and vitality to make NME drool. Too righteously indignant to pause for breath, Idles propagate an incisive yet impressively non-preachy sociopolitical polemic via bubblegum hooks, singalong anthems and moshable rabble-rousing. Employing punk’s sneering vernacular, but dispensing with its nihilism, the album’s scathing wit and wry self-awareness lift Idles beyond cabaret act. A buoyant shot in the arm and exhilarating tonic for a flagging scene. KB Limerick multi-instrumentalist Post-Punk Podge channels frustrations with Irish politics, mental health and media into a wild, noisy break-laden squall. Podge and his collaborators tear into their surroundings and cultural context across five chaotic, textured tracks. While Podge’s Lydonesque vocal sneer is loaded with purpose, the honesty and vulnerability that makes his music so thrilling is brought home poignantly in one fleeting moment, with a poem from Podge’s mam to close Pause for the Apocalypse. Raw, uncompromising and gloriously angry. MMGB Be the Cowboy finds alt-rock songstress Mitski in more reserved form, though her lyrical preoccupations – alienation, regret, lost love – are all present and correct. There are some wonderful tracks, from the lovelorn piano balladry of Two Slow Dancers to the masterful disco cut Nobody, but too many of the songs are slight and indistinct. Mitski’s lyrics are as affecting as ever (haven’t we all pined for ‘one good movie kiss’?), but without stronger melodies, it mostly remains a pleasant background listen. Until your next bad break up that is. JOH FOR EVENTS IN THE CITY, EXCLUSIVE CONTENT AND EVERYTHING WE CHAMPION. VISIT TOTALLYDUBLIN.IE