Ólafur Arnalds – ...And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness [MP3][320]

...And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness
Label: Erased Tapes Records
Format: Vinyl, Album
Country: UK (CD) & Iceland (Author)
Released: 2010
Genre: Classical
Style: Classical, Electronic, Neo-classical







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As I sit down to write these words I can't help but wonder if there was a time lapse in my memory - haven't I covered this before? I could have sworn I shared my excitement for this album in the past - after all, I hungrily consume everything by Ólafur Arnalds since his 2007 debut on Erased Tapes, Eulogy For Evolution. Well, if I haven't shared my enthusiasm for this release, I apologize... Profusely... Incredibly lovely, sad and beautiful, music from Arnalds will melt the toughest hearts. If melancholy could be wrapped in sadness drenched in longing, then Arnalds captures it all. This is precisely when words loose their meaning, and the music sings... ...and they have escaped the weight of darkness is a second full-length album from this prolific Icelandic modern classical composer. In places uplifting, and always gorgeous, the contemplative passages escaping Arnalds' fingers on the piano, and the crying stringed instruments, leave the listener reflecting on all that is present in this moment, even if its veiled by the past. You absolutely have to pick up Arnalds' masterpiece, Variations of Static, (Erased Tapes, 2008), as well as his 2009 EP on the same label, Found Songs. It is also worth mentioning that Ólafur's 2009 album, Dyad 1909 was selected in Headphone Commute's Best of 2009 : Music For The Film behind Closed Eyelids.

Review by Headphone_Commute [http://www.discogs.com/user/Headphone_Commute/]

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Four Tet - There Is Love in You [MP3][320]

There Is Love in You

Label: Domino

Format: CD

Country: UK

Released: 2010

Genre: Electronic

Style: IDM, Deep House, Glitch, Leftfield

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Kieran Hebden first came on the scene in the 1990s as a member of Fridge, a post-rock outfit that to me always looked better on paper than they sounded on record. Whatever you think of his first band, Hebden's subsequent career can be seen as the idea of post-rock done right. His appetite for music, on the evidence presented in his albums, singles, DJ sets, and collaborations, is voracious. But Hebden has a way of transforming and integrating influences rather than channeling them. So if his loose improvised collaborations with drummer Steve Reid captured something of the spirit of the classic late-60s free jazz records on Impulse!, they also managed to carve out a unique and identifiable aesthetic that sounds very much like today. When working with others, like the wooly free-folk unit Sunburned Hand of the Man or the dubstep producer Burial, Hebden knows when to lead and when to get out of the way. But all the while, whatever the context, he's absorbing. And when it comes to his own records as Four Tet, he has a knack for combining sounds from all over and making them his own.

Rounds is the one undisputed Four Tet classic, but all are at least good. It's not unusual for Four Tet records to have a few dull patches, but given Hebden's M.O., that's never a big problem. You expect him to explore a bit, so it's okay when once in a while something doesn't quite gel. Ringer, an intriguing EP from 2008 that throbbed with a minimal pulse and revealed a surprisingly austere side to his music, is a good example. It was the kind of record you wanted to inch closer to, because you had the sense there might be more going on beneath the surface than you'd initially realized. The follow-up album, There Is Love in You, is the glorious sound of those ideas being drawn into the light.

This is the most focused Four Tet album by a huge margin, and for some listeners that could be an issue. Hebden apparently refined this music over the course of a long stint as a resident DJ at the London club Plastic People. He'd play developing tracks in his sets, see how people responded, and return to them armed with this information. And while the result isn't dance music proper, There Is Love in You definitely functions on that plane. This isn't fist-pumping music that toys with the pleasure of pop music, like one of my favorite Four Tet tunes, "Smile Around the Face". And it's not an album that bowls you over with the density and intricacy of its textures. Instead, it's both heady and physical, subtle but powerful music for thinking and moving or ideally doing both at the same time: It's been a while since a brisk walk through the city sounded this good.

Very early in the 2000s, the corny word "folktronica" was sometimes applied to Four Tet's style. It never defined him, but the tag was applied because it described his fondness for samples of sounds that seem to be reverberating in a physical space. He sampled jazz cymbals, guitars, gamelan-style percussion, and voices, mixing them in with electronic squiggles and choppy breaks culled from hip-hop. Hebden's fondness for acoustic sounds caused his music to come over as unusually airy and bright. It made you think of daylight rather than the nocturnal crackle of sampled vinyl. Though Love is a very different album from those earlier records, remnants of the sound palette remain, imparting a similar sense of clarity, brightness, and warmth despite its late-night club-bound inspiration.

Visit [http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13861-there-is-love-in-you/] for complete review.

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Carbon Based Lifeforms - Interloper [MP3][320]

Interloper

Label: Ultimae Records

Format: CD, Album

Country: France

Released: 2010

Genre: Electronic

Style: Acid, Downtempo, Ambient, Chillout

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Carbon Based Lifeforms is one of the best ambient music composers I have ever crossed across. It's something studied, known, but in the same time it is natural, it's fucking well done, with nice melodies and frequencies that cross your brain side to side.

My favorite sequence starts with Euphotic. If you get trapped by Euphotic melodies, the album will end very fast. The combo Euphotic - Frog - M is my favorite ambient combo sound ever. This is not my favorite album from Carbon Based Lifeforms but it's certainly a ambient/natural sound masterpiece.

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I was highly anticipating this release and a little sceptical if the Carbon Based Lifeforms would be able to achieve a high level again such as in "World Of Sleepers".

Trust me, they did.
They announced they experimented a little more with guitars and vocals this time so I was even more worried that they may be losing their style. But it turns out to be at an absolutely minimum scale and fits very very well.
The sounds they arranged this time are mindblowing and for me personally even more sound-of-the-universe-level.
I have listened to it as much as I could since the release and I am always discovering more electronic details. If I had to pick a favourite track (which will probably change from time to time),
right now it would be "Supersede". You may be reminded of "Epicentre" when listening to it but they gave it such a unique touch which makes it an absolutely epic arrangement.

The overall feeling is very intense yet peaceful. They put so much love in this album, it is worth every cent!

For me it is the release of 2010 so far.

Review by SpaceAgeHero [http://www.discogs.com/user/SpaceAgeHero]


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Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today [MP3][320]

Before Today

Label: 4AD

Format: CD

Country: UK

Released: 2010

Genre: Rock

Style: Pop Rock, Psychedelic Rock

When it came time to prove to the world that he was a genius or have his genius forever co-opted by the world, Ariel Pink rolled his eyes and spit out a masterpiece so hard you can practically hear him yawning at terminal velocity throughout the whole thing.  The pops are hardcore, the hooks are hookier, the snaps snappier, the production values through the roof, the whole thing tighter, cleaner, bolder, brilliant, shimmering, and utterly effortless.  Unravel the patchwork sonic freeways of Pink's past albums and roll them up into unique balls of yarn, put titles on those balls of yarn and call them proper "tracks," and you have the most undiluted blasts of Pink's talents yet.  Is something lost?  Yes.  Is something gained?  Yes.  Are these questions rhetorical?

It's hard to properly articulate just what makes an AP'sHG album tick just as it's hard to properly articulate what makes a David Lynch movie tick.  These artists are iconoclasts, busy inventing new languages while we struggle to pin words to them.

Review by trotchky

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