Recommended Records
Animal Collective - ODDSAC
It's a frightening, surreal but compelling work that draws on the strengths of Animal Collective while also adding perspective to their failings, in this case allowing their sonic indulgences to dictate the direction. »
Max Richter - Infra
Music like this can be the soundtrack to your imagination if you let it in. »
The Roots - How I Got Over
An album with a universal soul, heart and conscience, but a groove all of its own.»
Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse - Dark Night Of The Soul
Often collaborative projects end up being an average of its participants, merging in the middle in a grey mulch. Dark Night of the Soul escapes all of that, Sparklehorse bringing the songwriting genius, and Danger Mouse the production.»
Mount Kimbie - Crooks & Lovers
It’s rare to find a level of craftsmanship like this on a debut; Mount Kimbie have delivered a strong statement of intent and a record that is certainly a contender for album of the year.»
R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction: Deluxe Edition
Birthed in a haunted old South, forged in a drab England, paranoid, sensual, nonsensical and true, Fables... was undeniably something of a diversion on the route to indie rock stardom. Yet for many fans this moon-touched night walk exceeds nigh on all the records that followed.»
Dirty Projectors, Bjork - Mount Wittenberg Orca
It’s a testament to the strength of Dave Longstreth’s songwriting that Mount Wittenberg Orca wouldn’t suffer were Björk not a feature. »
Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
With Sir Lucious Leftfoot, Big Boi shows that he’s just as capable as his namesake of producing some genuinely original, mind bending and most of all, ass-shaking hip hop.»
Janelle Monáe - The Archandroid
The real question is, why can’t all pop be like this now? »
M.I.A. - /\/\ /\ Y /\
Vulnerable or headstrong – and M.I.A. is often both over the course of her self-titled third – she sets her stall pretty clearly. “I got something to say” she hollers in ‘Born Free’. As long as her music remains as bold, inventive and occasionally thrilling as it is here, long may that continue.»
DM Stith - Heavy Ghost Appendices
Heavy Ghost Appendicesoffers the kind of haunting that every house should welcome. »
Mystery Jets - Serotonin
For those fans put off by the 'mainstream' stylings of Twenty One, look away. There is nothing for you here. »
I Am Kloot - Sky at Night
You have to sit back and think – finally, they’ve done it.»
Laurie Anderson - Homeland
Homeland’s biggest achievement is to sculpt a lot of minutes of material – both new tracks and ones she’s been playing live for years – into something that feels textured and whole, rather than fatly fragmented.»
Perfume Genius - Learning
Mike Hadreas cuts a slight, androgynous figure in the few press photos circulating for Perfume Genius, sporting a black eye in one shot and darkened neck in another. Learning is a likewise bruised and suggestive affair; one of catharsis and rare, redemptive beauty, which ranks as one of the most uniquely endearing and quietly forceful debut albums of recent years.»
Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal
Both beautiful and terrible at once, Returnal is the aural equivalent of a scuba dive in the open ocean.»
Pulled Apart By Horses - Pulled Apart By Horses
The content of Pulled Apart by Horses’ debut may come as no surprise, but that's exactly what you want from this band.»
Ed Harcourt - Lustre
He is as in touch with his emotions as ever, but has learned to temper his darker sentiments with more light-hearted compositions. It allows him to convey his confidences and doubts, loves and longings with a respectable sincerity, rather than feeling like he’s told you more than you really wanted to know. »
Delorean - Subiza
On Subiza, Delorean come tantalizingly close to producing an instantly-iconic album.»
Clogs - The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton
With its ambiguous musical beginnings, this album places itself in the thick of the vegetation, but with clever instrumentation, the sounds spark images of stunning green scenes – some safe, some scary, some seemingly from another world. »
Johnny Flynn - Been Listening
In making Been Listening simpler, and more imperfect than his first record, Johnny Flynn has held out a hand in a way he never did before. »
Ratatat - LP4
Your imagination provides the film, Ratatat provide the glorious soundtrack.»
The Wave Pictures - Sweetheart
It’s sort of… I mean it’s quite….well, it’s just sort of… sort of indie, I guess…y’know? Really, really good indie. Pop. Indie-pop. Amazing indie-pop. »
Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come (Special Edition)
You can well imagine the band themselves, with their anti-capital, anti-self-deifying tendencies, along with their insistence that: "All that we have to say has been said here or in our music/manifestos/lyrics and if that is not enough you are not likely to get it anyway", being furious at the idea of this reissue (if they hadn’t always anticipated such a cynical act of capitalism, that is.)»
Washed Out - Life Of Leisure
As a starting point for Washed Out, it doesn't get much better than Life Of Leisure, other than to say more please, and soon... »
Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - Blood & Fire
It’s been a dusty old hiatus since 2004’s The Royal Society. We’re happy to report that, in the downtime, TEMBLD’s piss has indeed turned to vinegar - and that as a result, they’ve never sounded more caustically thrilling. »
Rolo Tomassi - Cosmology
Rather than offering a new vision of twisted metal eccentricity, Cosmology solidifies and consolidates what Rolo Tomassi already had. »
Villagers - Becoming a Jackal
O’Brien’s howls and cries throughout are an exorcism of growing pains, and to that end universally resonant and resolutely empathetic.»
Guido - Anidea
The final product comes out sounding like nothing else out there, a kind of soulful bass hybrid that’s both fiendishly danceable and compulsively difficult to switch off. »
Deftones - Diamond Eyes
Throughout you are riveted to your seat, searching amongst the debris for something as gripping and breathtaking as 'Digital Bath', the salacious brutality of 'Be Quiet and Drive' or the arcane violence of 'Elite'. And just like previous album Saturday Night Wrist, you realise highlights aren't immediately forthcoming and that multiple full-length listening is the only way to relate to the work; to lose yourself in the decadence, the irrevocable descent and the hazy, shimmering silhouettes this remarkable band conjure. »
armchair dancefloor 39: Mount Kimbie interview, Bobby Browser, Powell, Move D, Leon Vynehall...
DiS meets John Lydon - Part 1: The Man
DiS Does Singles 20.05.13: Paramore, Laura Marling, The Replacements
DiS joins the Music Alliance Pact + May 2013's global MAP compilation
Drowned in Bristol #12
DiS Does Singles 13.05.13: Swim Deep, These New Puritans, The National
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