Artist: Toro Y Moi Album: Unerthed: Hole Erth Unplugged Label: Dead Oceans Link: https://toroymoi.com/ Style: Electro, Folk
American Chazwick Bradley Bundick graduated in graphic design from the University of South Carolina. With three fellow students, he founded his first indie rock band before joining forces with the artist Washed Out. Like Washed Out, during his solo career under the name Toro Y Moi, he went through several phases before finally settling on a quiet, sensual pop sound with a strong electronic influence, where synthesizers and samples reign supreme. He released his first album, Causers Of This, in 2010 and has since released a dozen or so albums, dabbling in different styles according to his desires and inspirations.
Accustomed to musical contradictions, Toro Y Moi offers us a reinterpretation of Hole Erth, his previous album with a strong electro influence, in which he used computers and filters almost to excess. With Unerthed: Hole Erth Unplugged, the artificial flourishes have been abandoned, and the central elements return to the acoustic realm with guitar and vocals. It is even surprising to discover these compositions in a version stripped of all artifice, showing how some of them can be content with simplicity to ultimately highlight their strength. For this album, we will therefore look for comparisons in folk accompanied by a light psychedelic veneer.
With these new arrangements, the songs take on an unexpected character, with the strings of the folk or slide guitar vibrating gently. Carried along on a down tempo rhythm, they follow the lead vocals and backing vocals. Even though they don’t hesitate to show that they are made of metal, they avoid going too high and overloading the tweeters. A violin or piano accompanies them on certain tracks, but it is always the mid-range frequencies (and therefore the vocals) that are seductive with their presence within a soundstage of unfailing stability.
Artist: John Maus Album: Later Than You Think Label: Young Link: https://johnma.us/ Style: Pop, Electronic
A professor of philosophy and Doctor of political science, John Maus only became truly interested in music in his early teens, swept up by the Nirvana craze. He played in a few punk bands while creating music on a computer, but above all, he studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts. He therefore has a deep knowledge of classical music, particularly medieval and baroque music. It was his encounter with Ariel Pink that confirmed his desire to create music with a strong pop orientation. Marked by his commitment and emotional expression, his live performances forged his reputation. But it wasn’t until his third album in 2011 that critics began to favor him.
With his elastic bass, love of vintage synthesizers and baritone voice, John Maus transports us directly to the New Wave and Gothic spirit of the 1980s. His songs also reveal an interest in liturgical chants, reinforcing the Gothic feel. This penchant is fully embraced in the closing track of the album, ‘Adorabo’. The approach, while dark, remains danceable in the style of Joy Division. His lyrics are reflections on what our society inspires in him, but also marked by the loss of his brother in 2018, inviting us to free ourselves through an ever-present spirituality.
At the beginning of his career, John Maus made a name for himself with lo-fi production, fortunately for audiophiles, an aspect that is much less prominent today. The strong presence of deep vocals and mellow bass favors the low-mid range, which nevertheless remains clear enough to be easily discernible, especially with speakers that have good bass quality. With synthesizers sprinkling little melodies throughout, the sound is a blend of 80s/90s tones and a fresher, more modern production, which further reinforces the importance of counterpoint in pop compositions.
Artist: Drift Album: At The Party Label: Animal 63 Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg9UnQk1oPM Style: Electronic, Funk, Pop
Attached to Ferber Studios, notably Studio B where he has set up shop, while providing sound for Jean-Michel Jarre’s concerts, engineer and producer Renaud Letang has worked with an impressive number of musicians, including many of the most important artists on the French scene. In the particularly long list of albums he has produced, he has embraced a multitude of styles, but alongside these achievements, he has also been quietly working on personal compositions, which he is finally releasing. The artists featured on the album are as numerous as they are diverse in their backgrounds and horizons, sometimes very distant from one another.
Under the pseudonym Drift, Renaud Letang delivers music that is uniquely his own. It draws on influences from disco and funk, but it’s as if these styles weren’t meant to make you dance, daring instead to blend with lounge and even easy listening. Given the number of guest artists, the tracks seem to be the result of a collective effort, and depending on the participants, they take on a style closer to electronic music or hip-hop. To stay in keeping with the mood of the album, even the troublemaker Philippe Katerine offers lyrics that are less absurd and divisive than usual.
This album, produced by Renaud Letang himself, is a bit like a dish worthy of a Michelin-starred restaurant, served to us with Grandma’s portions when she found us anemic. The atmosphere is perfect for relaxing on a rooftop, but audiophiles will appreciate the balance across multiple criteria, never excessive. All the instruments and other electronic sounds are very clear and manage not to sacrifice the connection between them. The soundstage is not the widest, but everything finds its place naturally between the speakers. The overall sound also maintains a balance between instrumental warmth and precision.
Artist: The Sick Man Of Europe Album: The Sick Man Of Europe Label: The Leaf Label Link: https://thesickmanofeurope.net/ Style: Pop-Rock, Electronic
Apart from a few videos of live performances, where we see that the trio performs without a drummer, there is little information about The Sick Man Of Europe. This stance is fully embraced by the band members, allowing the music to speak for itself. When asked which musicians inspire them to write their songs, they tend to mention the state of the world, the tensions shaking societies, and technology creeping into human relationships without being truly understood. It’s quite a program, which ultimately results in music with many references.
The first notes take us straight back to the turn of the 70s and 80s, when the nihilistic momentum of punk was slowly transforming into a dark new wave under the weight of a brutal society. Other influences can be felt, such as minimalism and Krautrock from the same period. The dark atmospheres and the singer’s deep, gravelly voice are reminiscent of Bauhaus or Joy Division (see the recently released Closer), and they even manage to create an even darker and more tense sound, which is no mean feat.
In keeping with the standards of the genre, the bass is prominent on many tracks, often playing an important role in both the rhythms and melodies, accompanied in this area by the guitar. The rest of the rhythm section is shared between drums and drum machines or synthesizers, with a presence of strange machine-generated rhythms that really evoke the spirit of early New Wave albums. The production, marked by a coldness that is as sought-after as it is achieved, manages to hold these artificial components together with the more traditional instruments in a coherent way.
Artist : Ben Frost Album : Under Certain Light And Atmospheric Conditions Label : Mute Link : https://ethermachines.com/ Style : Electro
Reykjavik-based Australian Ben Frost turns timbres into sonic drones, leading him away from ambient and towards avant-garde electro on Under Certain Light And Atmospheric Conditions.
Ben Frost is an Australian musician and sound engineer who grew up in Melbourne. He released his first EP in 2001, which evolved into his debut album in 2003. Not feeling at home in Australia, he settled permanently in Iceland, where he became a member of the Bedroom Community collective. His electronic music is inspired by classical, noise and minimalism; as you’ll have gathered, the artist is fond of collaboration and experimentation. A jack-of-all-trades, he worked alongside Brian Eno in 2010 for the “Rolex Arts Initiative”, and has been at the helm of numerous soundtracks, including those for the Netfllix series Dark and 1899.
This album contains three previously unreleased tracks from sessions on the previous Scope Neglect album, and is constructed from material captured during live performances, improvisations and field recordings. The result is not devoid of a certain hermeticism, distancing itself from any melodic velleity with a kind of dark, gothic ambient, where the saturation of the guitar may suggest a kinship with drone metal. However, the electronic treatment and the various aspects of this radical music are far from the norm, as this is clearly experimental electronic music.
Ben Frost’s music is dominated not by timbres, but by sonic textures. Depending on the track and the quality of your system’s phase, these will be more or less fluid and their differentiation more or less obvious. Good definition or headphone listening will help you to unravel this lacework of sounds reprocessed in the studio, or sometimes simply integrated as they were recorded. If you listen carefully, you’ll be able to admire the work that has gone into shaping these pieces of music, while retaining their rough, raw quality, blended with the cold, mineral feel of Iceland.
