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Nosaj Thing - Home

Home doesn’t make the mistake in sacrificing quantity for quality, nor the other way around. Subtler works in an electronic producer’s career usually indicate symptoms like lazier musicianship, unrealized sonic ideas, floozy production approaches or even the occasional experimental concept record gone horribly wrong. Like every EP and album Chung has released to date, Nosaj Thing nurtures the project with a near-masterful grip on direction and a fine-tuned, layered technical ability beaming with finesse. The sky’s the limit for Chung now: we’ve seen him produce intro- and extrovertedly now; where he wants to go next, there’s no telling. All we can do is dim the lights and let him fill the room with the beauty of another world. (7/10)

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Portico Quartet - Portico Quartet

We can only go so far when we talk in specifics about Portico Quartet. Hailing from London, Portico Quartet is a modern nu-jazz group who sound like electronic music gurus and think like post-rock professors. Their 2012 self-titled LP marks their 3rd record to date and easily, their most atmospheric and ambient effort yet. In many technical angles, “Portico Quartet” plays out like four chefs, all specializing in different cuisines, making the same dish. The result, is the best case scenario from such an experiment; yet inept to be defined by rhetoric. There’s an invisible quality to Portico Quartet: a dark, calming, cerebral sensation. Where the gears begin to spin in your cortex, your senses are sharpened, time slows down and the world slurs itself to invigorate your mind. Within these musicians brooding improvisations and dreamy experiments, it’s impossible to miss the magic. (8/10)

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Top 50 Songs of 2012: #35, Zammuto - Too Late to Topologize 

Wooh-hoo, you’re an audiophile.

Formerly known as half of experimental electronic project The Books, Nick Zammuto brought his solo side project into the hearts of many critics this year with his inventive and gleefully eccentric self-titled LP. Zammuto offers some of the most interesting moments in indie-electronic music in recent memory, one of the more resonant is “Too Late to Topologize”: a groovy, multi-layered and smart pop tune which utilizes everyone’s favorite music tool, auto-tune, in the coolest way I’ve ever heard in my life.  

(Source: Spotify)

Matthew Dear - Beams

Beats whiz by like its Christmas and Disneyland is slowly melting.

Entering Matthew Dear’s fifth studio album, “Beams”, is like experiencing an element of dark fantasy for the first time all over again. Through Dear’s bolstering technical abilities as an avant-garde glitch/house music producer, the sensations of experiencing something new composed of elements so familiar come reignited. Aberrant, highly-detailed electronic productions laid out to give room for a sepulchral inner psyche make an undeniably engaging and thorough work of sonic art well worth the attention of those looking for a real bite in their pop music. (8/10)

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Squarepusher - Ufulabum

An orgasmic, playful and multi-faceted drum and bass record filled to the brim with neon-colored textures, industrial-styled urgency, nu-jazz elements and intelligent technical ability. (8/10)

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Lone - Galaxy Garden

Mind-bending but certainly not mind-blowing, IDM producer Matt Cutler a.k.a. Lone returns this year with his brightest, tropic and most artificially dreamy release to date: “Galaxy Garden”. And while repeated visits of this album never truly won my senses over despite a highly-detailed level of electronic production, avid listeners of house, techno or glitch-hop will sure to call this one of the year’s finest. (6/10)

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Zammuto - Zammuto

Former member Nick Zammuto of acclaimed experimental duo The Books returns with his self-titled solo project and new LP: Zammuto. While The Books called it quits at the top of their game (breaking up in 2010, with their last release “The Way Out”), there was a lack of closure in where their final creative destinations were. Well, Zammuto is here to clear up any loose creative ends. Through each of his tracks, Nick concocts an idea sonically, throws in a house of mirrors, and when it finds its way out, smashes it with a sledgehammer (like Gallagher). It’s an explosive musical style, but not of Flaming Lips proportions; think of a more technically defined Anamanaguchi or Animal Collective. With rapping computer voices, absurdly edited jazz and electronic samples galore and the coolest usage of auto-tune I’ve ever heard, it would be a challenge to deny Zammuto’s enthralling qualities. Through all of its skippy, skittery, zany, bouncy, smart and unadulterated fun, “Zammuto” is the most enriching experience the world of experimental rock has this year; heck, I haven’t this much fun since Battles’ “Gloss Drop”. (10/10)

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Tycho - Dive

It’s an often under-appreciated challenge, but the hardest thing ambient artists have going for them comes in producing detailed, interesting and thematic music. Producer Scott Hansen is always playing with this notion under his project: Tycho. His latest album, “Dive,” follows suit as a successful work of ambient music loaded with bright, hypnotic sonic textures. Like on Shlohmo’s “Bad Vibes,” Tycho pairs subtle interplay between a mix of detailed layers and trance-like melodies. “Dive” is a warm, intimate and often serene work of ambience. (9/10)

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John Talabot - fin

Fin is an impeccable and meticulous work of house music, composed of a scatter of world influences and built with plenty of applaudable technical ability from John Talabot. Here’s the catch: no one listens to house music! So play this at a chic and criminally over-priced hair salon, maybe it’ll work. (8/10)

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Shlohmo - Bad Vibes

With an excess of ambient music floating about the indie side of the internet, it’s an almost arduous task to pin-point artists with a distinct talent in the genre who require no pretension to appreciate. While it doesn’t aim for the sky or desire anything more than its own capabilities, Shlohmo’s “Bad Vibes” is a low-fi ambient record intensely serious about being ‘chill’. It doesn’t demand your attention in any way whatsoever, but welcomes it if necessary with a slew of intricate and multi-layered sounds and ambiance. “Bad Vibes” is perhaps the only example of modesty in a genre filled with pretentious work. It’s the coolest paradox any producer has offered in recent memory. (7/10)

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Skrillex - Bangarang EP

There’s no holding back Skrillex when it comes to experimenting, blending and stretching the limitations of electronic music, but his recent EP “Bangarang” is an uninteresting, tacky and tiresome collection of heavily based techno-pop dubstep experiments; one that almost leaves you feeling stupid and unfulfilled even after its finer moments. (5/10)

Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror 

I was never one to deeply analyze Sleigh Bells. They built themselves to be irresistible for the indie scene, and they were. Their debut release “Treats” came out of nowhere and took the indie pop scene by storm in 2009. It’s murderous loudness and juicy pop hooks created polarizing opinions, most in favor of the band. One might construct a deeper meaning in the intentions of this group, but some things are best left enjoyed on face value.

In case you didn’t know, Sleigh Bells is duo Alexis Krauss, former teen pop singer, and Derek Miller, former hardcore guitarist. On their sophomore LP, Reign of Terror, the duo is most notebly out for a new style and, believe it or not, an itch to sound louder than Treats. Sure enough, it was made possible. Just when you thought Sleigh Bells was loud enough to shatter your eardrums, they kick it up another notch.

This is where the pros and cons of this album come from. It’s commendable to see Sleigh Bells go beyond their comfort zone, go for a different artistic and recording style and accomplish their goals in doing so. Specifically, Reign of Terror’s hi-fi recording and arena-sized guitar-based songs are what make this LP feel so fresh. But in all these new changes, what was the opportunity cost? Simple. Where Sleigh Bells became louder, they became less interesting; far less interesting, less entertaining, less immediate, less poppy, less exciting. Listening to a track on Treats gives the same joy as striking a match does: the friction of two forces dying to get set ablaze into something powerful. With Reign of Terror, I feel like I’ve been given a bite stick made of pure metal and am forced to sit through 36 minutes of an album. 

It’s a shame to see an exciting group do the right thing as artists but fall short in their results. Reign of Terror is not worth anyone’s time, but Sleigh Bells will be around. Here’s hoping for them to us with album No. 3. 

This album was my drunk and racist grandmother. (4/10)

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You chew gum. It tastes nice. You spit it out. That’s all.

For a sound that allows itself such a comfortable sonic range between the positivity of pop and the textured density of experimental electronic, these guys kept it really shallow. There are so many tools in front of these folks, yet, not a finger is lifted; leaving scraps of forgettable noise. Just like the contemporary nature of a piece of gum, Foster the People can’t be enjoyed longer then the lifespan of a Juicy Fruit. An ode to unsuccessful pop. 

Foster the People seem to have rose from zero to hero out of thin air. Led by Mark Foster, this team of newcomers emerged from a brief and nearly invisible independent phase and sold out faster than you could sell hot cakes. They’re a handsome band that followed suit with the whole electro-pop formula that’s proved undeniably successful in recent years with the likes of Passion Pit, MGMT and Phoenix; but somebody always has to come along and fuck up a good thing, don’t they? 

Foster’s contribution to current electro-pop are worth checking out for shits and giggles. Torches is one of those blistering waste of space albums that accentuates on its primary hit singles with more production value and attention; disregarding all other room for art in the process. Foster the People invent a messy electronic atmosphere and allow a mist of sexiness to emerge through their sound that basically creates all the weight of their appeal. This is undeniably well executed on tracks like Pumped Up Kicks and to an extent, Helena Beat. What really gets me is how this style disintegrates into a fine dust on every other track, leaving a slew of oddly produced and cheap sounding songs.

Regardless of preference, the weak and near desperate efforts of newcomer Foster the People won’t be resonating through anybody’s ears nor should they. 

This album is that absolute stranger you dance with at a party, then ditch three minutes later.

The intelligence of chillwave came and went as quickly as the tide lasted on the beach it lives on. 

Washed Out is a one-man project of Ernest Greene that proved conducive to the upcoming and recent sub-genre of chillwave, a genre that sounds like a minimalist take on dream pop that lives inside the head of a drugged-out surfer constantly on the beach. With it’s acclaimed results on Washed Out’s earlier work, Life of Leisure, Greene has now released his full-fledged first album, Within and Without. 

The soul of Washed Out’s genre comes from a very few ingredients: beats, song structure and mixing. This all ultimately produces the final product desired from chillwave: atmosphere. The slightest faltering in any of those ingredients significantly diminishes the work and while this tends to be true with many other genres of music, I especially point it out due to how much dependency the genre lends itself to within these elements.

There has certainly been an upgrade in Greene’s productions, the production value of the album feels bigger and the album feels a lot bolder, in a technical aspect. Ashamedly, it inadvertently counter-acts that bold quality by an array of very plastic-feeling and often meaningless beats and effects. This is perhaps the biggest letdown on the album as it tends to drag down the quality of atmosphere. Within and Without truly goes to show when artists successfully produce something out of a minimal array of tools at first and move on to bigger, expensive tools, their faults as an artist shine bigger as well. The sincere attempts to develop the sound into something more progressive should be appreciated, but the results leave an aftertaste that goes to show how minimal artists should continue their work through a comfortable creative environment where results come out successfully. From that success, progressive development will come internally and future works will come out thoroughly refined and not rushed.  

Certainly, the entire album doesn’t fall in the shade of its faults; there are few tracks (You and I, Far Away, Before) that function individually and manage to create a textured, multi-layered atmosphere that holds many of chillwave’s high qualities. Other elements like the experimental vocal stylizing and song structure succeed in context of its very “lite” aura. This goes hand-in-hand with its sound mixing, which comes off as subtle in execution and rewarding in the end. 

Within and Without functions blandly in comparison to previous efforts and other chillwave artists. It’s a tough statement since the release of this album is marked as a high point within the chillwave hub as a significant release from one of its more beloved artists.

It’s weak sauce for the folks already so lost in their own swoons for chillwave that nothing really matters anymore, only the mild-mannered trance. 

This album was like being forced to drink only diet soda.