M83: Solitude
Old m8 M83 shoehorns a Moog solo smack bang in the middle of a down-tempo symphonic ballad, the ambition well and truly overcooked to the point of nothing working. Hearing this live would call for a toilet break, and then another toilet break, and you’ll still come back to hear an instrumental coda that screams “that’s right cunts I can afford a fucking ORCHESTRA now!”.
AMATEUR DANCE: It’s Really Something (Ara Koufax Remix)
Melbourne’s Amateur Dance has proved adept at remixing, and now provides fodder for vice versa with a series of reworks from his pristine EP of last year. Diving in with gritted teeth, Ara Koufax get real nasty with some tunnel work underneath the original’s ambient glow.
LADYHAWKE: A Love Song
There’s nothing inherently wrong about creating music that eschews trend by a few years late, but the context of straight-faced synth-pop in 2016, rather than say 2010, means that a sense of true spectacle and genius songwriting is needed to resonate. A Love Song is okay, well put together, decent-ish chorus. But that’s it, invoking recent memories of something greater, not quite nostalgic, not a disruption of music in 2016 – so what’s the point?
NEARLY ORATORIO: Occlude
I’lls and KLLO member Simon Lam continues to overachieve with the new solo project Nearly Oratorio. Single Occlude, from the soon-to-be-released EP Tin, weaves itself together intricately, an engulfing safety blanket lowering the heart rate. It’s remarkable, much like Lam’s previous material. Nearly Oratorio provides a platform to extend beyond the aural touchstones embraced into Lam’s palette so far, honing a voice that projects more than the sum of its parts. This could be the spark to ignite something quite spectacular.
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
BLACK CAB: Uniforms
A measured croon punches up in a sea of triumphant synths – this being Black Cab’s purist venture into techno to date – the mood ascending to levels of triumph resembling parody. If their 2014 LP Games of the XXI Olympiad was the soundtrack, Uniforms is the credit music. You’ll struggle to imagine a more perfect balance of invigoration and introspection than this. Repeat listens reward, more of this please.
