Album Review: Attack On Memory - Cloud Nothings

Source: MTVHiveI'm circling back around this week to touch on a couple of releases from this year that I already managed to miss at the time. First up is Cleveland four-piece Cloud Nothings' third album Attack On Memory. I don't cover much straight up rock music on the blog because not much of it captures my attention - occasionally something does however and this is just such a case.

The cover of Attack On Memory depicts a black and white out of focus lighthouse. Cloud Nothings make mildly scuzzy music, the sound of a lo-fi rock band slipping down the back of a radiator and taking a bit of grunge with them before rolling into a furry bit of punk. That cover fits perfectly - slightly out of time, blurred and messy, yet beautiful and still trying to point the way. And that raw sound just makes this band all the more exciting, the lack of polish shining through brightly on Steve Albini's lassé faire production.

Opening with a melodic piano on 'No Future/No Past' is a good example of one of the two apparent halves of Cloud Nothings' new darker sound - less quiet-loud-quiet, more just quiet-quiet-quiet-loud-loud-louder as the song slowly stumbles towards an aggressively climatic staggering punch-out, drummer Jayson Gercyz's kicks punctuating vocalist Dylan Baldi's wails.

It's a fantastic start and as if to prove a point they go and do it again, one more time with feeling. 'Wasted Days' starts as a freewheeling wrangle, arms-a-windmilling, looking for a fight before entering a taught, paranoid instrumental middle section only to come out fighting once more, Baldi hurling dissatisfied barbs that result in a screamed onslaught: "I thought, I would, be more, than this".

Just when it feels like there is only one way to go Cloud Nothings reel things back in, showing a lighter side. Both 'Fall In' and 'Stay Useless' feel, musically speaking, like hopelessly loveable romantics - the latter's guitars, drums and bass all locking into melodic interplay before an unsympathetically unrefined chorus in tribute to apathy.

The second half of the album can't quite maintain such a pace, but few albums could. 'Our Plans' rumbles away, a disintegrating band playing away, gradually getting noisier and less in control like a musical take on Chinese whispers. Attack On Memory closes with its musically most straight forward song, needy punk longing ending things on a lyrically confessional note of masochism and love.

34 minutes and you are done, but Attack On Memory is a wonderful record that shows subtlety, aggression and creativity.

Attack on Nothing is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

EP Review: The Wrap Around EP - Detroit Swindle

Detroit Swindle are Amsterdam based Lars Dales and Maarten Smeets. This, The Wrap Around EP, represents Saints & Sonnets first release since Ethyl & Huxley's popular '3 Feet High' last year.

'The Wrap Around' itself is a soulful house track. The feel is pretty straight up with warm washes and a male vocal creating summer vibe - the press release likens it to Detroit, hence the name I would imagine, but if 'The Wrap Around' inhabits any city it's a fictional one smack bang in between the motor city and Chicago. The drums and echoing atmosphere have a feel of techno about them whilst the bass and vocal are pretty much straight up house.

Unfortunately 'The Wrap Around' feels a little lost - it's not a great house track and has none of the cold mechanical soul of great techno. It seems to want to be liked just a little too much. Much better is second cut 'Pain Tomorrow' - more obviously Detroit inspired, it's a tight minimal track that retains some funk but feels considerably more sincere, a loft party, clinking-glasses, trainers-squeaking across floorboards kind of vibe. It could easily have fallen out of fellow Detroit worshippers Motor City Drum Ensemble's record box. A good thing in my book.

As Pattern Select, Milton Jackson and Mathias Schober offer up a remix of 'Pain Tomorrow' for the final track here. The first three minutes are frankly nothing but an overly long DJ lead-in but from there it gets more interesting, stripping the original back and adding some thick, heavy drum and darker synth work whilst keeping some of the space and atmosphere of the original.

The Wrap Around EP is release on Saints & Sonnets on 7 March.

Album Review: Johnny D Presents Disco Jamms Volume One - Various Artists

Johnny D's Disco Jamms is a rapid fire disco assault that manages to cram in 18 classic disco tracks from across the years into an extravagant 77-minute long celebration.

And basically it's brilliant. The mixing may be a little rudimentary, but that was the way things were back in the days of disco anyway and this set really doesn't suffer as a result. The selection of music on offer shows that at its best disco can be glorious. It's a genre that still gets a bad rep in certain quarters, not helped by the fancy dress theme parties and some overly commercialised artists that rode the sound all the way to the bank whilst simultaneously leaving the true spirit behind. For the record I truly believe the Bee Gees and Abba are two or the worst acts to grace the planet. Ever.

But there is nothing of that insipid shiny thin pop here. Cerrone's beautiful 'Look For Love' has a warm shimmering chorus that rides a rainbow unicorn to a string backing before a full two-minute percussive break. It's inventive and extravagant and soulful and real and ridiculous all at the same time. As disco retrospectives go this one isn't in the least bit precious either, so sure, you'd got the O'Jays, but you also have Klein & MBO's electro masterpiece 'Dirty Talk' followed by the large bassline heavy 'For The Same Man' by B-Beat Girls. There are moments of glorious electronic disco from the eighties that run away with my heart here. The System's 'It's Passion' is glossy funk with a fantastic spoken word jogging-on-the-spot synth heavy bridge combined with a simply massive chorus.

Most of all though disco was always about getting on up and over - triumph in the face of adversity, less showing off, more celebrating what you should to be thankful for. And that is what comes through on this album, whether on the enthused 'We're On The Right Track' by Ultra High Frequency or Lafleur's instrumental 'Dub Till We Drop'.

Don't fight it, feel it.

Johnny D Presents Disco Jamms Volume One is released on BBE on 5 March, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: Future Disco Vol. 5: Downtown Express - Various

Last year's Future Disco 4 turned out to be one of the better mix albums I heard last year. Despite coming fairly late in an ongoing series it had a really strong sense of identity and multiple classic tunes. Future Disco Vol. 5 follows the mantra of if it ain't broke, don't fix it... What you have is another collection of contemporary house tracks from the current batch of hot new things, this time packages up under the subtitle Downtown Express.

So we have another winner then, right? Sort of. The problem here is two-fold:

Firstly this doesn't have any disco. Where as volume 4 had Kaine's 'Love Saves The Day' and 'Zombie Tropicana' - classic soul vocals and experimental eclecticism that encapsulated some of the original spirit of disco this latest release really just feels like a collection of recent house releases. Because of that fact there just isn't any noticeable identity.

Secondly and more importantly the quality just ain't as high. There are a few good standout tracks but nowhere near the same caliber as on the previous release.

So if it isn't exactly a killer release or a highwater-mark for the series then what is it? Mostly just a collection of decent tunes - good but unlikely to blow you away. Miguel Campbell's 'Something Special' is a case in point - it's a nice minimal but bouncy house track but nowhere near as good as his MAM collaboration I recently reviewed, which would have been a much more 'disco' choice.

There are still a few good moments, they just aren't quite as consistently essential as volume 4's best tracks were. Tensnake once again deliver the business on Tiger & Woods filtered mix of 'Need Your Lovin' and the Pitto instrumental version of T J Kong & Nuno Dos Santos' 'Something Happened' is a great tense piece of tech-house funk. Benoit & Sergio's 'Principles' is still excellent, as Benoit & Sergio frankly always are and Maceo Plex's mix of DJ T.'s 'City Life' shows once again that no-one makes techno influenced sunshine house as well as Maceo Plex.

The album only really starts to deliver as it closes though. Joakim's 'Find A Way' is given a beautiful remix by Soul Clap - aptly entitled the Soul Clap Floating remix the result is a deliriously contemplative loved-up sensation that captures the introspective coming-of-age feeling the Joakim album from which it is lifted attempted to capture in the first place. It just might be Soul Clap's finest remix to date. Similarly the Prince Language mix of Penguin Prison's rather formulaic pop house track 'Multi Millionaire' transforms the original into a suitably climatic old Chicago house tribute.

It's a shame things don't start quite as well as they finish.

Future Disco Vol. 5 is out on February 27 on Need Want, available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links].

Single Review: Beautiful World - Amirali

This debut release from Iranian / Canadian producer Amirali really reminds me of the whole tech-house prog movement of the early to mid-noughties. That may feel like a bit of a backhanded compliment but the sweeping cinematic sounds and large echoing bass lines come together to make a promising debut release from Amirali.

The original is a little bit gothic, and sure, it takes leads from Booka Shade and label mates Art Department but everyone here is ultimately just singing from the same hymn sheet popularised by Depeche Mode and The Normal's 'Warm Leatherette'. As source material goes you could do worse, but it inevitably feels a little sterile in comparison to the real thing.

The original is backed with three remixes. Daniel Bortz's is more minimal with a large scale breakdown complete with pregnant pauses laced with paranoia. As Hrdvsion, Nathan Jonson turns in a starker electro-influenced mix - functional but it lacks the impact of either of any of the other versions.

Deniz Kurtel, also on Crosstown Rebels, delivers the stand out mix however. Adding in a dark bass line with distorted synths and drums packing masses of reverb it is the only version that really delivers on the promise of the original, the extra flourishes playing off the darker sounds the original feels inspired by.

Amirali's debut album is out this Spring on Crosstown Rebels. Beautiful World is out on 13 February.