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Arca KICK ii [XL] Skelocrats Boy Bitten by Lizard
[Popical Island] Beverly Glenn Copeland/ Various Artists Keyboard Fantasies Reimagined [Transgressive] Aesop Rock Spirit World Field Guide [Rhymesayers Entertainment] The recognisable vocals of Damon Albarn have Sci-fi horror projections from the 1950s about what the year 2000 could look like were filled with flying cars and robot servants. Nothing could have prepared them for the soundtrack of the next roaring ‘20s. Arca achieves something beyond futuristic on the KICK records, pushing out past pure electronic and club. Combining Latin beats with filtered vocals, KICK ii is thick with heavy bass and mechanical echoing sounds. To label the album as chaotic would take away from the precise layered production. What Arca does is open the door to her universe and tempts you in by offering a unique listening experience. Hypnotic synths and sensuous drums on Prada make it a track to be reckoned with. Luna Llena on KICK ii softly emerges as an emotional reprieve from any hard hitting industrial tracks. Releasing multiple albums, and presenting them as a collection, after becoming one of the most creative producers in modern music shows that Arca is not to be messed with. The collection is overwhelmingly impressive and the collaboration with Sia on Born Yesterday speaks to the flexibility of Arca’s sound. After suffering the loss of musical pioneer SOPHIE, the KICK albums feel reassuring in their direction and how expansive they are in the world of experimental electronics. SMcD Like This? Try These... Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides - SOPHIE How I’m Feeling Now - Charlie XCX Another Life - Amnesia Scanner Returning from something of an unofficial hiatus, Dublin’s premier bockety-pop supergroup is back in business. Following the departure of oddball crooner extraordinaire, Paddy Hanna, this who’s who of domestic indie stalwarts have further bolstered their ranks with the addition of No Monster Club’s (Sir) Bobby (Jukebox) Aherne and Ruan Van Vliet of Squarehead. Whether it can be chalked up to the new blood or otherwise, the quintet sound nothing if not energised on this, their most immediately arresting and deftly constructed collection to date. The shambling, grab-bag, energy that defined their first two records has always been one of the great pleasures of Skelocrats as an endeavour, so, to praise Boy Bitten by Lizard for its focus can’t help feel a little off. Yet, this newfound clarity in vision and sharpness in presentation never reads as compromise, or worse, the sanding down of rough edges at the expense of character. In essence, despite the presence of titles like We Drink Our Own Piss, the chaos has been dialled down in favour of a sweeter shade of sophistication. This twist is pointedly evidenced in closer Sweet Talk; itself an unassumingly anthemic wonder reminiscent of Pulp at their most potent, or in the taut to the point of spring loaded, pure pop pleasures of the tracks that front and centre the belted vocals of Bronwyn Murphy White. DW Surely for many, merely listing the collaborators featured on this full length revisiting of Beverly Gleen Copeland’s seismically influential early electronic masterpiece would be enticement enough. And rightly so, Arca, Ana Roxanna, Devonte Hynes to almost arbitrarily name but a few – it speaks to Copeland’s remarkable legacy that talent on display here is made up of artists intent on making the musical landscape that bit more interesting, more unexpected. This rare gem of a collection is a masterwork of curation and a further, ever timely reminder of Copeland’s brilliance. Effusively recommended. DW While travel isn’t an option for most of us right now, you could do a lot worse than a metaphysical journey with rapper Aesop Rock on Spirit World Field Guide. Rock’s eighth studio album is a woozy confluence of his lyrical proficiency and skill behind the mixing desk. There are vast synths, crisp drums and creepy 8-bit hooks. These unearthly soundscapes are scattered with mind-bending lyrics; this spirit world is full of bats exploding out a mountain cave and crystal skulls. It’s a hell of a ride. JJ Fickle Friends Are We Gonna Be Alright [Cooking Vinyl] On Fickle Friends’ second record, Are We Gonna Be Alright, the Brighton-based quartet pack in as much as possible across twelve rather lacklustre tracks. Many components to the songs feel overproduced and overfamiliar in their configurations. Whether it’s the ‘90s rock inflection lending a grittier veneer to the instrumentation on Love You To Death or a tempered bumbling bass riff permeating the ‘80s pop-rock number Glow, there isn’t a lot on offer here which distinguishes much innovation from the band. ZH The Cribs Night Network [Sonic Blew] In a year where landfill indie made headlines, a new record from the brothers Jarman should be no surprise. The Cribs eighth studio album, their first entirely self-produced effort since forming twenty years ago, is coloured with a nostalgic palette that spans from Dusty Springfield-tinged melodies to generous helpings of indie-infused Britpop. Opening with the lilting Goodbye, sprinkled with Spector-like magic, the trio radiates an alluring warmth. For those whose coming of age was soundtracked by The Cribs, this release feels as though their sound has matured with their audience. ZH Aeon Station Observatory [Sub Pop] AC/DC Power Up [Columbia Records] passersby ALWAYS [Self Released] Lambchop Trip [Merge Records] Aeon Station is the new project from Kevin Whelan, formerly of feud-prone indie rockers The Wrens, and half the songs on Observatory were originally intended for a Wrens album that never materialised. The songs are a familiar rock mixture of quiet reflection and triumphant euphoria; Springsteen comparisons are inevitable, and to be fair to Whelan he mostly pulls it off. Might be a bit overwrought for listeners unfamiliar with the turbulent history of The Wrens, but for fans this is sure to be a jubilant and cathartic release. JJ Bruce Lee once said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” That being the case, he probably wouldn’t have fancied meeting AC/DC in a brawl. On their seventeenth studio album, the Australian hard rockers give us 12 entertaining variations on the musical kick that they’ve been working on for decades. You might forget some of the riffs as soon as you’re finished listening, but Brian Johnson’s demonic vocals can still thrill. JJ Diarmuid O’Connor, formerly of Dublin indie fourpiece Angular Hank, has struck out on his own as passerby and released his debut tape ALWAYS. O’Connor says he was “never really able to sit on the couch and bang out a classic ballad on the guitar,” but he shouldn’t be worried about that. The seven tracks here are beautifully impressionistic sketches; the lyrics are intimate but the music is adventurous, melding traditional indie sounds with some more progressive and electronic stylistic flourishes. Don’t let this one pass you by. JJ Ever the restless auteur, Kurt Wagner’s latest pivot sees him encourage each bandmate to choose a track to cover. This diffusion of creative control largely forgoes the electronic dabbling of recent releases in favour of a return to some understated country soul for grown-ups. The selections are characteristically left-field, while Wagner’s laconic baritone sedately unfurls across a six-track collection stretched to album length by its sparse slow burn. It should be a throwaway concept, but under the covers you’ll find a cohesive summation of an enterprising band quite content to fly below the radar. KB Now Open 29 South Anne St, Dublin 2 Tel. 01 531 4491 55