Feeling/ Not Feeling

FEELING



Emeralds- Does It Look Like I'm Here? Astonishingly beautiful. Sampled their first (widely distributed) disc and didn't care for it, but, here, like on Fuck Buttons' Tarot Sport, they've really produced something massively moving.



ARP- The Soft Wave- Of all the mostly pleasant komische to come out in the past few years, only ARP seems to really have handle on the kind of alchemy which made it special. Most notable, however, is the vocal track "From a Balcony Overlooking the Sea", which could have been plucked from Another Green World. Downright stunning.



Submerse- A few real cheeseball ditties in this canon, but I'm only now catching on to this whole "future garage" thing and digging approximately 50% of it.



Synkro- the closest thing to a Burial clone we've got, which is fine since Burial doesn't seem to be in a hurry to put out more.


Sun Araw- On Patrol
Blondes- "Moondance"
Dennis Ferrer- "Hey Hey"
Grouper- "Hold"
Cut Copy- "Where I'm Going"
Gayngs- "The Gaudy Side of Town"




MIXED FEELINGS



Oneohtrix Point Never- Returnal- Yeah, it's good, but Rifts is soooo much better.



Delorean- Subiza- Can't be sure yet if the vocals are noxious or tolerable. All I know is that "Seasun" got on better without them. The music is otherwise delectable.





Mount Kimbie- Crooks and Lovers- A bit on the fence about this one. Based on their EPs and remixes, I expected it to blow my mind through multiple orifices. Not quite. Was excited to hear (possibly conjecture) that they use FruityLoops to make their tracks. As a fellow FLooper, that makes me respect them more.



the "Drag" or "Witch House" genre- Speaking of FruityLoops! Drag might just be the most Fruitiest Loopiest genre to ever gain national spotlight. Obviously, I see nothing wrong with the technology (see above), but some of the artists (Mater Suspiria Vision, Salem) seem to take no pains to correct many of the problems with it (flat sounding drums, easily recognizable presets, etc.). And it's not even that many of these tunes are all-out bad (there's a few decent ones), but it's a shock to hear someone like Salem get crowned with next-big-thing status from otherwise exemplary pubs like FACT. Geezus, m0dnAr sure were ahead the game, I guess. I have a huge gripe however with the "Witch House" tag as this music has nothing,repeat NOTHING, to do with house music as it currently or ever has stood in the past. The house tag seems to just be a way to give some kind of underground "cred" to a scene that's essentially post-hip-hop electro-goth or screwed darkwave or maybe even just plain coldwave without being as much of a blatant homage as the Wierd acts are. The only house-ish act included in the current roster of Drag acts is Pictureplane, who, despite an excellent little song called "Goth Star", doesn't really seem to fit in with some of the other artists. Judging by the Youtube presence, many of these artists are quite adept at making psychedelia out of foreign horror flicks, but musically I'd take early Ministry/Cabs/Gristle/SPK/Coil/Young Gods, et al. anyday.



NOT FEELING



How To Dress Well: Yet another example of apartment bedroom pop. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this is bedroom pop that is scared shitless to sing with any passion for fear that the neighbors might hear. It's bad enough the kids don't want to pay for music, at least pay for some studio time if you're not allowed to make any noise. Also, is there a rule that this music has to be compressed to shit so that you're hearing the top sound bars peaking against the top of the register?

Seefeel - Faults by Warp Records

Seefeel- "Faults"
Can't even tell you how excited I was to hear about new Seefeel material, especially since they proved with last year's Maximo Park cover on the Warp comps that they still had it. I named changed my music project in homage to Seefeel, for chrissakes. Not abysmal by any stretch, but definitely weak by Seefeel standards. And I loved that last Disjecta EP.


Panda Bear's new single: eh....