BRSKY is the Music.
Kitsuné Music is a Parisian music label perhaps best known for its prolific series of compilation albums, Kitsuné Maison. If you haven’t heard of Kitsuné, perhaps you’re more familiar with some of the artists who have appeared on their compilations, including Bloc Party, La Roux, Crystal Castles, Digitalism, Hot Chip, Simian Mobile Disco, and Klaxons, to name a few.
In preparation for the release of the series’ 9th installment later this month, we decided to take a look back at the previous compilations and put together a playlist of the best of Kitsuné Maison. After picking through about 20 hours of music, we whittled it down to 25 tracks that we think showcase the spirit of the series. Sample them right here with the playlist below – we hope you enjoy!
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March was a relatively slow month for groundbreaking releases, but nonetheless we were able to sift out some quality music — so here we are. This month’s most iconic release was probably Plastic Beach by Gorillaz, an idiosyncratic album that was either: a) ironically ironic (secretly regarding itself as a masterpiece) or b) simply lame. Contrastly, Peepers by Polar Bear came in under the radar but proved to be a wonderful showcase of musicianship quite worthy of our ears. Also winning favor were Warp veterans Autechre, dazzling us with what we think is one of their finest collections of sonic intricacy.
This month’s report includes streaming samples for you, hoping to draw out each album’s spirit more adeptly than our clumsily-chosen words. So read on and we’ll see you next month, as we get started cooking up reviews on buzz-generating releases from musical maestros MGMT and Caribou, among others.
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Scott Hansen is a California-based musician (Tycho) and artist (ISO50) who collaborates on the iso50.com blog with: Jakub Alexander, who runs the Moongadget record label; Alex Cornell, who is a student at The Academy of Art in San Fransisco; Sam Valenti IV, the founder of Ghostly Records International; and Beamer Wilkins, who runs a software firm and creates electronic music instruments.
Hansen describes his view of design as, “the search for efficiency. Efficiency in conveying a message, efficiency of form. In this way I see some of my own work falling into the category of design, while some of my other work falls under the umbrella of illustration. With the more illustrative pieces my primary goal is to create something beautiful or striking in a visceral sense. These goals remain intact when I create a purely design-driven piece, but there is the added goal of minimalism and efficiency which constrains the process and limits the content. It is these constraints that force us as designers to reveal the core of the idea we are trying to express and to seek the most direct route to it.”
We unanimously agree at Brasky that Hansen’s music, style, and design is excellent, though he makes it clear on his blog that he doesn’t want anyone to take his work too seriously.
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‘Plastic Beach’, the newest album from pop supergroup Gorillaz, is a confounding listen. Much like its title suggests, from a distance, this album appears to be everything that fans have been waiting for and more. With an impressive cast of co-stars, it reads to be a ground-breaking blast… on paper. But when one examines closely, it turns out that the sand and waves are merely hollow representations of how amazing the record could have been. As the equally plastic NOW Magazine puts it: “It has hooks, but none as immediate as past Gorillaz hits.”
It shows characteristic signs of dance-worthiness, but at other (unfortunately more frequent) times, it devolves into utter tedium. Too many tracks start out at the pace that they will ultimately maintain, and nearly every song seems to pass through some stage where the novelty edges dangerously near grating or downright annoying. Although a progressive group in some senses of the word, most of the songs begin with great promise only to dwindle into repetitious lushness, never breaking out of that 4/4 ‘tick tick tick tick’ hi-hat and 1-2 bass snare humdrum. The reviews are puzzlingly positive, with only the Los Angeles Times breaking the mold and slamming it handily: “Too many of these 16 hazy, half-crazy tracks sound like undercooked studio goofs recorded in the wee hours by Albarn and his impressive circle of celebrity pals.” Perhaps the writers in LA were not so awestruck by the celebrity guests. They and Brasky both urge you to keep in mind: although perfectly good corn sometimes turns up in turds, it is inadvisable to consume.
Other reviews paint a picture of an unforgettable album worth listening to again and again: “[Plastic Beach is] not just one of the best records of 2010, but a release to stand alongside the greatest Albarn’s ever been involved with and a new benchmark for collaborative music as a whole.” says the BBC. While it may be a shot in the arm for pop music, overall it seems like just another album, the way that many bands’ fourth and fifth records happen to turn out (read: Zeitgeist by Smashing Pumpkins, No. 4 by Stone Temple Pilots, etc). The main gripe that Brasky has with this album is that it simply never finds that explosive passion from previous recordings. Although the snark and intrigue remain, the energy and soul seem to have been drained from the disc, replaced by something ‘plastic’, something that the band seems to assume that we will automatically get excited about simply because it exists under the ‘Gorillaz’ moniker.
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In Florida, the first weekend in March is usually a Northerner’s fantasy… highs in the 70s, fat old sun shining away, birds bigger than they ought to be lazily picking critters out of serene swamps… but something significant is missing this year. It’s not the snowboards slowly playing shuffleboard in West Palm Beach, and it’s not shark attacks (although their number is down significantly). There is a very quiet ghost roaming South Florida, one whose glorious life was short but beautiful, and meaningful to many people around the world. March 6 2010 is the two-year anniversary of the death of a very good friend… In 2009, Langerado, Florida’s premier music festival, was canceled indefinitely, with little chance of ever occurring again.
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After four weeks of ball-frostingly cold weather, February has mercifully yielded control of the calendar. Despite its chronological impotence, February did find time to produce for us a belly-warming assortment of new music (which we continue to savor, mmm). Unfortunately, we also choked on a few bitter concoctions along the way, and hoping to protect our dear readers, we have chosen to include those in this month’s report.
Without further ado, Brasky team is happy to humbly offer up our assertions on the best–and worst–of new music in February 2010.
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DISCLAIMER: Brasky does not recommend this album in the sense that it is good. We recommend it in the sense that it is free. |
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We here at Brasky would like to send a shoutout to our irl friends over at MUSiC SNiTCH, another Florida-based blog that reports on emerging music. Recently they got their hands on some copies of the new Midlake album, The Courage of Others.
To snag a free copy, just join the SNiTCH Twitter or fan page on Facebook and you’ll be entered. No gator motorcycles are being given away.
For more details, hop over to MUSiC SNiTCH and learn how to win*
* seriously, no alligator bikes
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A phantogram is an image that has been color adjusted in order to make the picture, with the help of 3-D glasses, emerge from the page with new-found fidelity. Immediately upon settling the needle down on the imaginary vinyl of Eyelid Movies, the rookie album from the New York duo that record as Phantogram, the sound emerges in much the same manner… it seems to diffuse out from the speakers, a highly textured mixture of viscous sexuality and fearless mystery-pop that requires no special glasses to tickle your amygdala.
I have always asked myself the question ‘What will music sound like in ten years?’, and usually I come up with a generally far-fetched image of some total fucking weirdos making music that is a distant cousin of our relatively blaise current music. Generally that idea is disproved, although music does evolve, and yes, performers continue to get stranger. I am not usually disappointed, but I am a bit baffled at music’s predilection for recalling old tones and tunes and presenting them as new, and some genres’ musical oeuvre is so narrow that any progressive move would put new material in another category. Phantogram’s new album has come the closest possible to fitting my imaginary mold of some of the future aspects of music. It relentlessly blends styles, keeps sonically pleasant tones in mind, and doesn’t skimp on the quality for the sake of sounding authentic or ‘indie’.
For me, the best music evokes not an immediate emotional response or motivation, but rather summons a vaguely interrelated cloud of adjectives. I have prepared two graphs to give my best shot at scientifically explaining what happens when virgin ears happen to run into Phantogram’s album. The first is an interrelated scatter chart of adjectives in an (X,Y) arrangement with ‘cool’ on the X axis and ‘strange’ on the Y axis, and the second is a pie chart attempting to account for the dozens of influences one will encounter on Eyelid Movies.
Ten pervasive adjectives are listed on the left, and they form the basis for the left to right flow of the infographic. As we can easily see, initial reactions of the ‘strange’ variety give way immediately to a growing trend toward ‘cool’. As the album progresses, strange moments pop in here and there (consider a song titled ‘Futuristic Casket’, which starts out with gangster rap beats, yet ends with tender xylophone arpeggios), but the prevailing feel is that this is an unflaggingly hip, dark, and exciting album. Etiolated means bleached by lack of sunlight, by the way.
The next chart offers a detailed analysis of the songcraft and sonic 
texture of the album in terms of possible influences. The three strongest are Serge Gainsbourg, a deceased French songwriter (whom the band themselves cite as their prime influence), the Postal Service, and the Cardigans. Other influences are peppered in without abandon… I could have sliced this pie into slivers trying to characterize single songs, let alone the entire thing.
To wrap this up, this is an amazing debut album. My only regret is that it will be some time before we can hear new material from Phantogram, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a 2011 follow-up.
8.5/10
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January releases in cinematic terms mean one thing: we are embarrassed, we know these movies suck, but here they are anyway. A studio has to make money, even when Oscar season is stepping up. Who releases a musical album in January, then? The answer is Geniuses. I’m not sure if it is a psychological attempt to be ‘firstsies’ on the new decade so far as releases go, but January was packed with big name offerings. Highly anticipated releases from Vampire Weekend, Beach House, and Jaga Jazzist are exciting early contenders for album of the year. Without further ado, we have reviewed seven albums complete with ratings out of ten. Enjoy (read: Raucously disagree).
Albums:
| Vampire Weekend – Contra |
7.5/10
Highlights:
Holiday
White Sky
Cousins |
This upstart foursome from New York may still be reeling from the success of their first offering, 2007′s self-titled album. Widely regarded as one of the best indie albums of that year, the buzz in anticipation of their sophomore studio album must have seemed daunting. In today’s fast-moving, Internet-spurned music industry, it seems few bands have succeeded in keeping favor with the hip for more than one album. We’re here to say that we think they survived (Just avoid “Horchata“)
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There is no mistaking that this album is by the same band that we all fell in love with in the summer of ’07. Ezra Koenig’s vocals slide all over the scale, as chirping keyboards and peppy guitars weave around each other in that distinct Vampire way. We think this is no truer than on Holiday, this album’s A-Punk. But despite the familiarity, this album seems to experiment a bit more, perhaps influenced by producer Rostam Batmanglij’s explorative journey as part of the duo Discovery. We have all been running through this album and I think we agree that the tracks almost all seem to grow on you–except that damned vocal hook in “Horchata“. Perhaps we have a band that is here to stay. |
| Beach House – Teen Dream |
8.0/10
Album Highlights:
Norway
Zebra
Used To Be |
Teen Dream is both beautiful and atmospheric; the subtle, almost unnoticeable accompaniment of the piano in most songs is a testament to the band’s instrumental harmonization. Upon first listen, though, this characteristic causes the songs to seem indistinguishable, requiring several listens before I was able to truly appreciate their finespun appeal.
I especially love Used To Be. Its introduction is more powerful than that of the other songs, but it slowly tapers, which is suggestive of a progressively emotional ending – a good formula for this group. |
| Four Tet – There is Love in You |
5/10
Album Highlights:
Love Cry |
For those among us who have followed Four Tet, we know that a Kieran Hebden track is a layered and linear cerebral event. There is Love in You is a collection of tracks carries on his legacy of sample-heavy, drummy, beat-loyal chillout music. This album leans toward the minimalist house ingredient in the Four Tet arsenal, making this album less-than-ideal for a focused listening session. Some of the tracks feel a little lackluster, but it’s hard to dismiss the work of an artist whose stirred the emotions of so many with passionately engineered sonic offerings…. but I think we should suggest listeners skip this one unless they know exactly what they’re bargaining for. |
| Ok Go -Of the Blue Colour of the Sky |
7/10
Album Highlights:
WTF |
Ok Go have historically bucked the trend of being easily ‘classifiable’. Are they a radio rock mainstay, as hits like ‘Get Over It’ suggest? Are they niche-pop superstars, measured roughly by the arcing success of singles like ‘A Million Ways’? Are they
the first true internet band? One would not have to have ever paid a visit to Youtube to have seen their treadmill jumping antics (the original video is nearing 50 million views). But even after all that exposure, has Ok Go successfully cemented themselves as a perennially popular band?
They continue to raise questions with their newest album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Although devoid of jaw-dropping, guitar hero worthy anthems, this album is ready for radio, dance halls, and parties across the world. It is unabashedly sexy, fun, and strange. Many of the songs on the album could be from reunited 80s bands, or even dance-punk masters like The Faint or Electric Six. The bass slams, as usual, and many tracks get under your skin enough to force you to stand up and shake them out. The sexy, ‘licked whisper’ lyrics may polarize many listeners, yet the tone is consistent enough to have manageable highs and lows of stylization. Overall, it appeals to all classes of listeners without forgetting what the band set out to do: be as cool as fuck. This is Ok Go’s ‘Icky Thump’… energetic, daring, confident, refined, and well-honed. It also possesses that quality not often seen in major label releases: it gets better with repeated listens. It is well suited as an early decade release: a step forward, and in the right direction to boot. |
| Eels – End Times |
6/10 |
Many gloomy themes have passed through Eels’ world in the past twenty years. After his sister committed suicide, Mark Everett (or simply ‘E’) recorded the dark classic Electro-Shock Blues, and songs like ‘Novocaine for the Soul’ and ‘Cancer for the Cure’ have achieved some commercial success despite desperation and hopelessness at their poignant souls. End Times, Eels’ newest album, was recorded nearly exclusively on four track, and it thematically follows E’s recent divorce. His aging voice hasn’t lost the articulation to adequately voice heartbreak, confusion, and bitterness, and although the album may find itself exploring the new realm of relationships, a moribund approach is what E does best. As E says in the album’s final track, ‘On My Feet’, “I’m pretty sure that I’ve been through worse, [...] but I’m still dying inside.”
Through and through, End Times is a familiar record. Familiar tones, timbres, and topics. But what stands out beyond the foundation of the Eels repertoire is the ease with which these songs seem to flow, and the sardonic sense of humor that it takes to sit alone with a guitar and pluck out hopeful tunes about death by anonymity and suicide bombing is E’s happy place. If you mix Bob Dylan and Beetlejuice, this is the album that would likely be produced. It may not make any year-end lists or top 40 charts, but it does prove a point: that Eels is a consistently powerful band that always finds its muse, even if that muse may resemble a big stone angel hovering above a gravestone. |
| RJD2 – The Colossus |
6/10
Highlights:
Giant Squid
Let There Be Horns
A Son’s Cycle |
On his last album, The Third Hand, RJD2–a.k.a. Philadelphian RJ Krohn–experimented with more instrumentation and started singing on tracks. Krohn offers up vocals again on The Colossus, but shrewdly limits his singing to a few tracks, seeking out the vocal assistance of others instead. The Colossus features guest vocalists and performers on five tracks, varying from loungy serenades (see: Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Kenna) to a full-on hip hop (courtesy the stylings of The Catalyst, Illogical & NP on a strong track, “A Son’s Cycle”).
The album’s overall mood is mellow (psychedelic), funky, and important-seeming in a Flaming Lips meets Amon Tobin way. The production is impressive, something we come to expect from RJD2, but this album’s brew of popular funk/jazz sounds (Jamiroquai? Squarepusher funkscapes?) feels un-serious at times. Or perhaps fit for the movie soundtrack of a PG-13 movie? Or something I’d hear playing in public?
Criticism aside, the album has some good tracks. I especially enjoyed “Giant Squid“, a funky jam that seems closer to the style I had previously associated with RJ’s music. “Let There Be Horns“, the leadoff track, succeeds in entertaining by immersing its listener in Krohn’s world of funky drums, android synths, and–as you may guess-horns. I don’t think fans of RJD2 will be flat out disappointed, but I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone else (in its entirety, at least). |
| Jaga Jazzist – One Armed Bandit |
7.5/10 |
In their new album, One-Armed Bandit, Jaga Jazzist manages a number of feats: they take from their previous styles, while also improving on them and moving in new directions. Lush soundscapes form the background, while a blend of prog-rock, jazz fusion and electronica take the fore.
A Living Room Hush, their most acclaimed album, featured tracks that had musique concrète stylings. (As an aside, some of their songs have been remixed by Dat Politics and Matthew Herbert, groups often classified as musique concrète).One-Armed Bandit sees them moving away from this a bit, and more towards grand orchestral tracks fit for a movie score. Jaga Jazzist has been and continues to be an amazing creative machine that produces music fit for musicians, hipsters, and music geeks alike, |
Songs:
Here are some of our favorites from this month from releases not mentioned above:
I Blame Coco (Feat. Robyn) – “Caesar (Diplo Remix)
The Knife – Colouring Of Pigeons
The Xx – Islands (Nosaj Thing Remix)
Phoenix – 1901 (Memory Tapes Remix)
Gucci Man – Photoshoot (Flying Lotus remix)
Air – Sing Sang Sung (Black Moth Super Rainbow remix) (Download)
Rogue Wave – Stereogum (Download)
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