A Month in Records: April 2006

Adem - Love and Other Planets
"Love and Other Planets inflates love and all love’s facets, to a scale of universe-like proportions. In the same way, it reduces all the light-years of distance between planets to the inches between freckles on a loved one’s arm. In ‘Spirals,’ ever so tenderly, Adem sings of tectonic shifts in his chest, feeling vaster than the Milky Way, as a partner traces the galaxy onto the inside of his arm..."
Read Rachel Cawley's full article

Flaming Lips - At War With the Mystics
"No single song here can serve to summarise At War With The Mystics’s whole; in many ways it’s the most wonderfully out-there record the Lips have ever produced..."
Read Michael Diver's full article

Ladyfuzz - Kerfuffle
"The excitement and anticpation before this record dropped onto the welcome mat could probably be sensed throughout the Greater London area. Or, at the very least, by the chap in the flat upstairs who banged on the ceiling to drown out both my slightly excitable feminine squealing and the noise that my dancing feet made on the laminate flooring. To be fair though, the chap upstairs showed wonderful taste in the long run, as his banging ceased when I finally put the album on and turned the volume up..."
Read Stefan Appleby's full article

The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
"There's something impenetrable about it, an obtuse level of abstraction and a joyless delivery that really leaves this listener with no point of entry at times. Where a truly brilliant record can take you to a completely different place, after listening to Bitter Tea I'm left feeling more like I'm squinting into a snow globe."
Read John Brainlove's full article

Mono - You Are There
"Part those clouds, see actuality in its glory, hold my hand and I’ll shadow you every step of the way if need be; I’ll wander these corridors too, feeling with fingertips, gladly, smiling to no one but myself as vision becomes redundant..."
Read Michael Diver's full article

TODD - Comes to Your House
"...ever since Todd’s Comes To Your House came to your house, you’ve found yourself engulfed by its relentlessness, consumed by its feverishness, duty bound like a soldier to sing its praises to all and sundry..."
Read Michael Diver's full article

Bearsuit - Steven F**king Spielberg
"Right, that’s it, paranoid fantasies over, there are people living in my stereo and they are trying to escape and eat my brain. There must be, I can hear at least six figures cloaked in black manifest themselves during the new Bearsuit single...I can only imagine what sort of twee-horror rituals they plan to undertake during this brief encounter, but judging by the soundtrack it's bound to be something quite perversely fun..."
Read Thomas Blatchford's full article

Field Music - You're Not Supposed To
"It's still got those trademark Mackem harmonies, but instead of throwing you around it'll tuck you into bed and wrap you up in cotton wool. Sublime..."
Read Rob Webb's full article

Goodbooks - Walk With Me
"And so Transgressive’s stable doors burst open once again. Leading the chase this time is the fine debut from Kentish electro-bopsters Goodbooks."
Read Ross Bennett's full article

Thee More Shallows - Monkey vs. Shark EP
"There’s something familiar here, in the echo that emerges, screaming, from beneath the wonderful wash of sound crafted by San Francisco’s Thee More Shallows..."
Read Michael Diver's full article