Staff Reviews

Small Black - New Chain

Review by Dan Cooper-Gavin

New Chain offers a 35-minute celebration of the spirituality of sound, bursting with life and soul, as thrilling as it is giddying. »

Buy now from:

first few copies come with a free copy of the 'small black' cdep. 'new chain' is the debut longplayer from new york's small black. richly coloured and thickly layered, it is an absorbing, eclectic and obsessive body of work. the brooklyn group have succeeded in melting together locked and popped drum-shudder, gauzy spirographic synths and subtly contagious, half-remembered melody into ebullient bursts of evocative, subliminal and thoroughly modern pop. the songs are equally informed by the rhythmic bounce and stylistic swagger of more left-leaning contemporary radio rap and r'n'b as it is the submerged kaleidoscopic swirl of the early 4ad dream factory. mixed by nicolas vernhes (animal collective, dirty projectors) at his rare book room studio, ny.
description from www.roughtrade.com