The Knife Announce New Album ‘Shaking The Habitual’
It’s been more than six years since The Knife last released an album, 2006’s fantastic Silent Shout, but all of that seems to be changing now with what appears to be a 0:43 video trailer the band just uploaded to their YouTube account. The album title is Shaking The Habitual, which can be found if you look at the source code of the band’s homepage, and the video has no music and all you can see are Karin and Olof playing on some swings. The release date hasn’t been confirmed yet but it’s rumoured to be out in the Spring.
Best Albums Of 2012 - #23: How To Dress Well - Total Loss
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Two years after his debut album Love Remains, Tom Krell aka How to Dress Well has come back with one of the most intimate albums of 2012. This little gem is the heartbreaking outcome of years of pain for Krell: the loss of his uncle and his best friend and the subsequent struggle with depression are all experiences that are tangibly reflected in Total Loss.
The pop and R&B influences are still there, but the sound is less lo-fi, much smoother, and Krell’s voice is high and crystalline in the falsetto parts. Total Loss is a beautiful piece of art and a psychological journey from sorrow to rebirth.
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Best Albums Of 2012 – #24: DIIV – Oshin
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This past year was great for bands emerging from other bands formations, and DIIV is an awesome new one: initially a solo project by Zachary Cole Smith - who plays guitars in Beach Fossils - it evolved into a band after Andrew Bailey, Devin Ruben Perez, and Colby Hewitt (formerly from Smith Westerns) joined. Previously called Dive because of the Nirvana song, it was under their new name DIIV that the boys released the debut album Oshinin June. In a triad of guitars-bass-drums, it’s a dream pop-meets-shoegaze record, bringing comparisons to bands like The War On Drugs and Real Estate. The experimentalism of Oshin makes you feel like you are surrounded by a myriad of sounds, as if yo were drifted by its different intensities of the tracks, and at the same time as if you were alone in a peaceful outer galaxy. In this transcendental space they take the listener there are possibly carefree experiences, gauzy ones, as it happens in tracks like “(Druun)”, “How Long Have You Known”, “Earthboy”, and “Sometime”. It’s also possible to try out some complex states, more haunted, with heavier tracks like “Air Conditioning”, “Wait”, “(Druun Pt. II)”, “Oshin (Subsume)” and “Doused”, which have a meticulous, inconstant constancy mainly brought by guitars and reverb. The use of this oxymoron shows the paradox of the album: inconstant and constant, feel surrounded and alone, and as it’s chanted in the final track “Home” - “you’ll never have a home / you’ll never have a home / you’ll never have a home until you go home”. But these singularities do not affect the album as a whole piece, far from it, that’s exactly what gives its taste as a marvelous creation made to stimulate your chakras to explore the unusual, undefined, and unknown.
Best Albums Of 2012 - #25: Sigur Rós - Valtari
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Sigur Rós are true masters of sound; for 15 years they’ve released album after album of pure sonic perfection. Valtari is their most tranquil record to date, showcasing the carefully crafted ambient compositions that brought them into the limelight with 2002’s critically acclaimed (). Valtari is an exploration of human emotion, beauty, and intimacy. Combined with their “Mystery Film Experiment,” it has quickly become 2012’s multimedia tour-de-force. Valtari is one of the year’s best post-rock albums, though unlike many of their noisier peers, Sigur Rós prefer mostly quiet, meticulously structured ambient compositions to the drone and noise that have recently dominated the genre. The album is a masterpiece of somber, contemplative sound, channeling human emotion, beauty, and intimacy.
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Phoenix To Release New Album In April
It’s been a long time coming, especially since Phoenix revealed back in May 2011 that they were in NYC working on Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’s followup, but at a press even yesterday for Spotify, the band’s label boss Daniel Glass of Glassnote confirmed that their new, as-yet-untitled album will be out in April. As of yet there’s no word on a title, artwork, a tracklist, or a release date, but we’ve only got four months to wait until we get our ears on it, I think you can handle that. Check out their Take Away Show performing “1901”.
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Best Albums Of 2012 - #26: Sea Of Bees - Orangefarben
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At this time last year I was completely unaware of the existence of Sea Of Bees, not even having heard the name in passing, though that all changed as Spring made way for Summer and a dear friend of mine sent me the video of Julie Ann Bee singing “Broke” in a tunnel in England. Her performance was beyond heartfelt enough for me to be completely sold before the video had even finished, and as Summer peaked we wore the album out. Its hopeful but heartbreaking tone soundtracked days spent in the warmth of the sun, surrounded by trees and grass and fields. Its somber and earnest lyrics accompanied nights spent under umbrellas waiting for storms to pass, and roadtrips through mountains to the edges of the state and back. It would be easy to label Orangefarbenas an indie-folk record only fit for days when the sun populates the sky longer than the moon, but it’s more than that. When you open up to its resplendent beauty and pay attention to the impassioned lyrics, it’ll become your constant companion during a breakup. The album you put on when you miss the love of your life, or your winter snuggle buddy when it’s -27 outside, everything is under 6ft of snow, and you’re wrapped up in your favourite hoodie, slippers, and knee-high socks.
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Best Albums Of 2012 - #27: Nedry - In A Dim Light
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Nedry’s début, Condors, drew plenty of attention when it dropped back in 2010, thanks to its combination of Bristol sound, more contemporary London bass music, and post-rock. Arriving as it did at the peak of the dubstep wave it’s perhaps unsurprising that it featured plenty of wub, and two years on that’s not sounding quite so fresh. Fortunately, on In A Dim Light, they’ve honed the formula, and the results are great. Given the combination of Ayu Okakita’s vocals and the Boards Of Canada electronic tinkering of the backing tracks, the whole thing’s redolent of Homogenic-era Björkery- you know, one of the best electronica albums ever made. But even so, it manages the impressive feat of drawing on a whole host of top-notch sources without sounding overly derivative of any of them. The whole thing is immersive and delightfully inventive.
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Listen: Twigs - EP
After already releasing two of my favourite tracks of the entire century in the last few months, the previously mysterious English lady known as Twigs has just revealed a new EP that includes two new tracks. Previously we fell in love with “Ache” and “Hide”, something you’d do well to do yourself, and today she’s dropped “Weak Spot” and “Breathe”, both below. They’re tagged as 1 & 3 of 4, though on Boomkat there’s a vinyl copy for sale that only lists three tracks (omitting “Hide”), with a street date of this month. “Weak Spot” sounds like her previous tracks with an early Massive Attack vibe to it, and “Breathe”is a little more reserved. Check them both out below and go get your mitts on that 12” from Boomkat, or download it from Bandcamp. This chick is going to be huge.
Best Albums of 2012 - #28: POP ETC - POP ETC
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When the morning benders re-branded themselves as POP ETC it came with a sonic shift that many have been quick to dismiss. And while it may be a case of excessive fanboy-ism on my part, I’ll continue to try and prove POP ETC’s strengths. The band have always made pop songs, and other than cleaning up in the production department and switching their guitars for synths not much has changed. Yes, there are some more cringe-worthy lyrics here, but the style of pop they’re shooting for this time around doesn’t need complex-ish explorations of the feelings of losing one’s virginity (like on “Excuses”, the song that placed them on the map in a big way).
And what may be lacking here and there - which I argue again isn’t that much - the record makes up for in replay-ability. The melodies here go down incredibly easily, and the one-two-three punch at the end, including “Yoyo”, easily one of the year’s best (pop) songs, make for one of the year’s best musical (pop) moments that makes you want to go back and hit the replay button. The band may have hit a sour note with the name choice, but musically things are practically pitch perfect.
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Best Albums Of 2012 - #29: Hop Along - Get Disowned
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Hop Along consists of singer and guitarist Frances Quinlan, drummer Mark Quinlan, and Tyler Long on bass. However, Frances is the one with the magnetic appeal. Her lyrics are afflicted by steadfast pessimism, like on “Diamond Mines” where she playfully chants, “There are some parent’s whose/children long/for divorce”. While the lyrics on Get Disowned are absolute poetry, Frances shifts from gritty yowling to sweet coos in practically every song. But then she admits, “I want truth and beauty/I want to love someone simply” and, in that moment of vulnerability, Hop Along exists on the crossroad where Kimya Dawson’s anti-folk songwriting and Cursive’s bipolarity intersect. Each track has movements that have been perfected over the years, and the gritty production quality doesn’t sacrificing any musical integrity. In short, Get Disowned is equal parts grand and young, improper and holistic.
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