Tag: Kate Bush (Page 2 of 3)

SARAH P. Asks “Who Am I”

6 April 2017 /


As a trailer to her first lull length album ‘Who Am I’, SARAH P. has unveiled a striking video for the title track…

Having previewed the introspective synthpop of ‘Teach Me How To Love’ and the haunting ‘Berlin During Winter’ already, ‘Who Am I’ comes over as possibly her sparsest and most emotive number yet.

With hypnotising hints of KATE BUSH, percolating Sakamoto-like textures prevail as the Greek-born songstress announces “I don’t know where I come from… do you know my name?” before a metronomic beat kicks in to lead a dramatic house-laden climax. The song is an ode to “humanity, the world we live in and our importance (or unimportance) as individuals and / or as a whole” according to SARAH P.

The video by Italian director Oirot Buntot is a mini-arthouse movie filmed at the Teatro Rossi Aperto in Pisa and paints a moving picture of the philosophical question “Who am I and where I come from?”

Strangely perhaps, the film was actually conceived to another song. But as SARAH P. eloquently puts it: “Science may have proved that opposites attract each other – but that doesn’t always apply in life; like-minded people attract each other, too – perhaps more often than rarely. And since I’m a romantic, I like to think that a series of events brought Oirot Buntot and me together to magically intermix our artistic work and serve each other’s vision, while enhancing our own. How many chances for two independent artworks that were made at a different time, to find each other and become one thing?”

And it all comes together perfectly in this musical tale of modern day disorientation.

‘Who Am I’ is available now as a download single, the album of the same name out on 12th May 2017 via EraseRestart Records.

http://sarahpofficial.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sarahpofficial/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photo by Christoph Neumann
6th April 2017

PARALLELS Metropolis

17 February 2017 /

Canada often treats the listener of electronica to some sparkling gems, including GRIMES, DELERIUM, FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY or RATIONAL YOUTH, and PARALLELS are now one of them.

The Toronto based trio consisting of the siblings Holly and Nick Dodson plus Artem Galperine, topped the electronic charts in 2015 and have toured extensively since. Known for their use of vintage synths, including the Korg PolySix and Juno 60, the self-confessed fans of DEPECHE MODE, KATE BUSH and NEW ORDER have now released their third opus ‘Metropolis’.

The claim that “PARALLELS has been more than just a music project to us – it’s something we’ve lived, breathed and dreamt about for many years now” proves that the passion to make music is deeply ingrained in the trio, who joined many other artists to present their work through Pledge.

The synthy and dishy title track, which also opens the long player, has been featured as Song Of The Week on CBC Radio 1’s ‘Here & Now’. It’s all about high energy, wholesome songs, sung in a stunning voice, which at times recalls MADONNA in her prime. Apart from the mellower pieces, there are some Eurovision worthy anthems, like ‘Civilisation’.

There’s also something dark lurking behind the candied front, which represents itself beautifully on ‘I.R.L’. The hounding vocal leads the elusive melody, studded with perfect electronica and that bass, as if taken from the soundtrack to ‘Twin Peaks’. ‘Ocean, Moon & Tide’ sounds like a female-led ERASURE and ‘Catch’ has the urgency found in the familiar tracks by Robyn, with synth lines of AND ONE.

The exuberant synth is joined by soft rock elements in ‘The Kids Will Save Detroit’, which also featured on ‘Civilisation’ EP. This tune could truly pass as a something from a film soundtrack. Similarly, ‘Technicolor’ has those larger than life BON JOVI or BRYAN ADAMS guitar riffs, before a more contemporary sound comes back on ‘The Last Man’. The lineal, almost tribal textures here, together with gentle synthesis and subdued lead, close the production.

While the sugar-coated vocal may not appeal to some listeners of the genre, it has to be said that PARALLELS have done their homework and produced an excellent dance album once again. Dodson’s voice has a luscious quality, without being too sickly, and it corresponds with the poppy electronica beautifully. Could she be the female Andy Bell? Sure so!

‘Metropolis’ is available as a CD or download via Marigold Productions from https://parallels.bandcamp.com/album/metropolis

http://www.iloveparallels.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Parallels/

https://twitter.com/iloveparallels

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
17th February 2017

HANNAH PEEL Awake But Always Dreaming

22 September 2016 /

Since her debut album ‘The Broken Wave’ in early 2011, Hannah Peel has undergone something of a transformation.

Her collaborations with JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS and BEYOND THE WIZARDS SLEEVE have seen more electronic elements absorbed into her own traditional template where the piano, violin, trombone and music box have been her instruments of choice.

The title track of her interim EP ‘Fabricstate’ saw analogue synthesizers take an increasing role with a blistering solo amongst the organic instrumentation. But on her 2014 seasonal single ‘Find Peace’, Peel went the full hog with a dreamy cacophony of electronics and percussive mantras. ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’ is Peel’s long awaited second album and it is an adventurous electronically textured experience, taking its lead from artists like THE BLUE NILE and Kate Bush while Delia and Daphne also linger in the background.

Themed around memory and the effects of dementia, the album’s opening gambit ‘All That Matters’ is marvellous slice of driving synthpop with sparkling arpeggios, staccato voice samples and uplifting bursts of symphonic strings. A mantra to live in the moment, Peel said the song was: “A constant reminder that no matter what life throws at you, to not forget about the ones who will always care, the ones who are standing waiting to welcome you back, the ones who will forever look after you and say simply, they love you. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters, caring and being cared for. Yet to love and not be loved is one of the saddest things of all.”

A spacey ambience provides the steadfast setting for ‘Standing On The Roof Of The World’ before whirring synths alter the mood. Meanwhile, on the LITTLE BOOTS styled electropop of ‘Hope Lasts’, our heroine plays around with some great counter-melodies for a sumptuous statement of faith.

A pretty piano introduces ‘Tenderly’ with a combination of exquisite strings and synthesized noises constituting the rhythmic passage. Continuing along a similar palette, a sparse percussive motif holds down the very personal ‘Don’t Take It Out On Me’ as drones and low slung bass build to add to the absorbing drama. Meanwhile, on the widescreen ballad ‘Invisible City’, tinkling ivories smothered in reverb provide the structure while the emergent orchestrations recall the blurry overtones of Brian Eno’s ‘Just Another Day’.

The second half signals the more experimental aspect of the album; in an interview with ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, Hannah Peel said: “the running order is quite specific in terms of how it goes into the rabbit hole of the brain and the darker side. The instrumentals and tracks with no lyrics represent how people lose their speech and hallucinate, so with that second side which is more psychedelic and the repeating of lyrics, I made sure certain elements were brought out…”

‘Octavia’ is an abstract art piece that reflects aspects of Peel’s Mary Casio project with cascading woodwinds and brass combining with a buzzing barrage of electronics, not dissimilar in vein to GOLDFRAPP’s earlier material on ‘Felt Mountain’. Following a short burst of piano, more strident notions kick in and it all starts to sound like Philip Glass reinterpreting something off OMD’s ‘Dazzle Ships’! The experimentation continues with the comparatively song-based eight minute title track; a twisted electronic adventure with ‘Fourth World’ vocal textures, percussive bleep collages blend in with passages of synthphonic strings seemingly trapped in a nearby radio.

A mournful piano shapes ‘Conversations’, the most Bush-like offering on the collection, as the search for further memories goes on. Lonely and heartfelt, its sonic representation of loss sets the scene for the challenging expedition of ‘Foreverest’. Symbolism for life’s mountain to climb, it’s a delightfully odd fusing of unsettling swoops and windy soundscapes coupled to bursts of clattering offbeats. Linked by a claptrap, the second half of this sub-nine minute progressive epic develops into a salvo of mechanical noise while some Vangelis-derived interventions also drift in.

A beautiful music box assisted cover of Paul Buchanan’s ‘Cars In The Garden’ ends the album and confirms Hannah Peel’s affinity with THE BLUE NILE. A harmonic duet with Hayden Thorpe of WILD BEASTS whose song ‘Palace’ Peel covered on ‘Rebox2’, it makes for an emotive closer as gentle synths wallow in and out of the consciousness. With ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’ being a record about memory, it poignantly captures “the luminous and beautiful formation of memories and the devastating loss or slow, insidious damage to the mind”.

Producer and collaborator Erland Cooper has done a masterful job of merging traditional instruments with the electronics on this artistically ambitious album. If Hannah Peel’s debut was ‘The Broken Wave’, then ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’ could be considered ‘The Tenth Wave’; as Kate Bush described ‘The Ninth Wave’ concept on ‘The Hounds Of Love’ as a person’s “past, present and future coming to keep them awake”, the comparison is not unreasonable.

An impressive body of work that will startle even her new followers who have come on board via her work with John Foxx, ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’ sees Hannah Peel at her most experimental yet. And it’s an achievement she can be very proud of.

‘Awake But Always Dreaming’ is released on 23rd September 2016 by My Own Pleasure on download, vinyl and CD, pre-order at http://hannahpeel.tmstor.es/cart/product.php?id=29367#sthash.lv0m8noE.dpuf

http://www.hannahpeel.com

https://www.facebook.com/HannahPeelMusic

https://twitter.com/hanpeel

Text by Chi Ming Lai
22nd September 2016

Introducing AZAR SWAN

29 November 2014 /

Azar Swan

Kate Bush’s return to live performance this year has highlighted the debt owned to her by any number of female fronted musical projects. THE KNIFE take their lead from Bush’s uncompromising stances while GOLDFRAPP’s avant pop instincts show that while Ms Bush pushed boundaries, she had tunes as well.

More recently, the kooky demeanour of the lady who came up with ‘Babooshka’ has also been omnipresent in Sweden’s IAMAMIWHOAMI but the more epic, gothic overtones of Bush’s work have now appeared in a new Brooklyn based electro duo called AZAR SWAN.

Comprising of Zohra Atash and Joshua Strawn, AZAR SWAN’s drum machine laden, synth and sample assisted template dominates their second album ‘And Blow Us A Kiss’. The immediately appealing title track is a dance friendly death rattle with a beautifully feline vocal from Atash backed by string machine chills and sombre brass tones.

Meanwhile, the brilliant new single ‘We Hunger’ borrows melodically from GOLDFRAPP’s ‘Strict Machine’ and adds some eerie exotic vocal timbres reminiscent of KELLI ALI, whose most recent album ‘Band Of Angels’ is possibly the one most comparable with ‘And Blow Us A Kiss’.

AZAR SWAN’s other cited influences include cult industrialists FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY and Essex’s own sonic experimentalists THESE NEW PURITANS; this is quite evident in their cavernous sound. The tribal ‘Bury The Sun’ brings in contemporary sonic references such as GAZELLE TWIN and NIKI & THE DOVE while the exotic drama of ‘Kiss Of Life’ is a marvellously percussive number that comes over like a modern Bond Theme sans strings and even breaks down to percapella at various stages of the song. And with a detuned rhythmical backbone, the minimal ‘Sugar’ makes the most of Atash’s passionate voice around some rich synthesizer moods.

Benefiting from a more streamlined compositional nucleus following the frustrations of multiple musicians slowing the writing and performing process in their previous band RELIGIOUS TO DAMN, the pair’s mutually revived interest in electronic music and hip-hop has blended to form a dark but accessible hybrid that will be enjoyed by those who like their music to be brooding.

Azar Swan-and blow us a kiss‘And Blow Us A Kiss’ is released by Zoo Music in CD, LP and download formats

http://azarswan.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AzarSwan

https://twitter.com/azarswan

Text by Chi Ming Lai
29th November 2014

IAMAMIWHOAMI Kin

30 August 2012 /

IAMAMIWHOAMI is the enigmatic electronic multimedia project fronted by Jonna Lee and managed by DEF, the same stable that represent THE KNIFE, ROYKSOPP, Robyn and Moby worldwide.

First coming to the attention of the musical cognoscenti via a set of mysterious viral videos with alphanumeric code titles, media speculation was rife that this was a side project by THE KNIFE, Björk and even Christina Aguilera! Following another YouTube campaign, the first purchasable full length download releases which featured single letter titles and eventually formed the ‘B.O.U.N.T.Y.’ indicated that even without the visuals, behind the mystery and the perceived pretence, there was accessible avant pop. From that collection, ‘T’ was an undoubted highlight.

But the best was yet to come with two outtakes from the sessions, ‘Clump’ and ‘John’. ‘Clump’ was a synthetically charged amalgam of vintage sounds with a toy piano thrown in for good measure. Delightfully odd in that Björk-like fashion, ‘John’ continued the tradition. And now, following a track-by-track audio visual campaign, Jonna Lee with silent partner and producer Claes Björklund release their long-awaited first full length physical album ‘Kin’

The album opens superbly, ‘Sever’ is surreal and otherworldly while ‘Drops’ is more uptempo, almost trancelike but without the overbearing beats that a lot of contemporary dance music suffers from. The fits of noise and shivering textures add to the hypnotism. Although comparisons can be drawn immediately with FEVER RAY, ‘Kin’ is quite different in that musically, it is low on drones and atonal experimentation. But while still sonically leftfield, there are ice station melodies, primitive rhythm units that are strangely futuristic and windy widescreen effects that hop from channel to channel.

Indeed, ‘Kin’ is head music, probably best suited to headphones for the full drama to be appreciated. The high standard is mantained with ‘Good Worker’, while ‘Play’ offers a cacophony of KATE BUSH-like voices to an off-kilter beat before the deviantly wonderful ‘In Due Order’ takes hold. A vintage sequence drives ‘Idle Talk’ over glacial atmospheres while ‘Rascal’ takes a funereal pace with Jonna Lee’s vocal samples coming over like Arctic gospel as of snaps of synth burst in.

The frosty ‘Kill’ acts as an eerie basecamp before the final ascent into ‘Goods’. Here, the percussion and bass take on classic synthpop territory while a brilliantly freeform electronic lead line segues the verses on possibly the most immediate song on the album. It’s almost like THE KNIFE meets LITTLE BOOTS!

Jonna Lee’s piercing larynx will polarise listeners like Karin Dreijer-Andersson or Björk Guðmundsdóttir have done before her but they do provide a raw edge to accompany the wintry soundscapes. Nordic weirdness in all its glory; across its nine tracks, ‘Kin’ is dreamy and trippy, a mind expansive experience that will satisfy aural curiosity.

‘Kin’ is released internationally in CD+DVD, download and vinyl formats on 3rd September 2012 by Co-Operative Music/To Whom It May Concern

IAMAMIWHOAMI plays the UK for the first time at London South Bank Centre’s Ether Festival on 10th October 2012

http://www.youtube.com/user/iamamiwhoami

http://www.facebook.com/pages/iamamiwhoami/270417754335

http://www.iamamiwhoami.net/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
30th August 2012

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