EP Review: Alone In The Storm - Kelly Pavan

This new EP from French producer Kelly Pavan on DhARMA is one of the best releases to cross my path in a while. It took a couple of listens to really ingrain itself in my mind but stick it on and turn it up and you can't really help but be won over by its glitchy, syrupy melodies and swooping folk influenced electronica.

There are three original tracks from Pavan here and the EP opens with the title track's gently strummed acoustic guitar and a male-female duet. Pavan's production is always there but subtle enough to stand back and let his music stand front and centre.

'Are You There (No I'm Not)’ is dreamlike - wispy and dazed whilst a thick drum beat gives it a sense of momentum and a more electronic feel than 'Alone In The Storm'. The combination recalls the chill wave of early Toro y Moi but nothing there felt quite as pretty as Pavan's sunny day dreams and folk influenced vocals.

The final track, 'Psychedelik Happiness' takes things further still, starting relatively gently before adding crunchy drums and layers of distorted bass and tweaking melodies. It feels distinctively French and yet incredibly fresh - a whole new French take on disco.

The EP is rounded off with a fabulous remix of 'Are You There (No I'm Not)' by live duo Of Norway, who give the original a laid back, organic feeling that plays to both the track's and the duo's strengths. Featuring loose bass, gentler drums and a melody of warm synths it's pure Balearia. And in case you didn't know, that's right up my street.

In Kelly Pavan DhARMA appear to have struck gold - he is definitely one to watch.

Stream and buy Alone In The Storm via bandcamp below:

EP Review: Dance With The White Rabbit - Ahmet Sisman

On this, his debut release on Culprit, Ahmet unleashes some tech-house that demonstrates the impact of his German residence at the same time of hinting at an earlier influence of Sisman's youth spent growing up in Turkey.

The title track is big room stuff, a vocal skittering across big, warm synths and a building melody. It's actually the opening where this is best though, the clattering freeform drums that feature there giving the track a more lively, soulful vibe.

Sisman's other original track on this release comes in the form of the darker 'Hello To Alice'... Spotting a theme yet? It's a deeper sound than we get on 'Dance With The White Rabbit' and edges it as the more interesting of the two, opening with sexy gasps and climaxing with the clean, refreshing chords in the middle break.

This package comes with two remixes of the title track, one from Nico Lahs and the other from Audiofly. The former is more progressive, removing the looping big room feel and riding a thick bass line. Audiofly's mix goes deep and low, giving the track a tighter feel and some slightly chaotic cosmic keys.

Dance With The White Rabbit is out 4 July through Culprit.

Stream 'Hello To Alice' below:

Album Review: Lucifer - Peaking Lights

Here's a confession: I lost the promo of Peaking Lights' debut album.

Whilst other more established and better organised music blogs were falling in love with with this duo I was falling over myself to figure out exactly where their album had gone.

I found it in the end though, dubby and sunny and seemingly increasingly lost in the moments it had experience in my absence - full of heady dreamy days and sunny hedonism.

The youth of today have seemingly become lost in a sun trap of day dreams and... Well, dreams. Listen to any of the bands you are supposed to give a shit about these days - Beach House, Washed Out, Kindness - and they all feel trapped inside their own lazy ambition.

What I really want. More than anything else. Is to keep on dreaming.

Peaking Lights' new album Lucifer feels like the removal of a veil. A pulling back of the curtain as you enter the tripped out dream world duo Indra Dunis and Aaron Coyes inhabit on this second experiment, their 45-minute sun dance.

And the dance kicks in proper on the intoxicating 'Beautiful Son', an epic crescendo of sunny keys, loving bass and assured guitars that forms a tribute to Dunis and Coyes' son, Mikko. It forms a high that won't let you come down. Not yet.

The intoxication kicks in proper at that point with 'Live Love', which quickly pioneers a groove-based dub adventure. 'Cosmic Tides' will leave you somewhere between enthused and relaxed, a slow move to climax that feels like little work was involved and yet it demands like an un-moveable force. There are traces of Peaking Lights' inspirations all over this record, in the fuzzy guitar lines of Stereolab and the subtle traces of paranoia peddled by Lee Perry. 

This is an album that, even more than their last, sees the listener on a disconcerting journey to discovery. Repeated listens will take you further and deeper, like a ever descending version of Christopher Nolan's Inception. Just ensure you pack a map and a torch for you return trip from dreamworld.

Lucifer is out now on Weird World, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

Stream below on Spotify [account required]:

Album Review: DJ-Kicks - Digitalism

http://designcollector.net/digitalism-simply-dead/The DJ-Kicks albums have had some decent entries over the years, particularly lately, so it is somewhat of a surprise to see this new entry come from Digitalism, who are unable to check either the 'so hot right now' box or the the 'highly respected in their genre' box of the likes of Soulclap (upon release at least) and Apparat respectively.

Instead Digitalism seem to be on the verge of irrelevance. More than perhaps anyone else they came closest to mirroring Justice's stellar popularity back in the 2007 / 2008 Euro house distortion bubble (in both senses of the word distortion). And as they say, the harder they come... Justice's second album is one of the most derided sophomore efforts in recent memory and critically at least Digitalism's I Love You Dude faired even worse.

This DJ-Kicks offering at times suffers from the same noise-core fatigue but more often than not just misfires into slightly tired, boring territory. There are a slew of Digitalism tracks and remixes here and some of them are typically noisy - see 'A New Drug' and 'So Totally Good', for example. The trouble is that what made this sound appealing in the first place was its relative novelty and the way it combined it with allusions to pop music. 'Pogo' was a massive pop record wearing a punk leather jacket and cranked to 11. 'Digitalism In Cairo' could almost have been Daft Punk in their prime. None of that is here - nothing tempers the noise and as such nothing comes close to that initial buzz.

So Kölsch's 'Lorely' is hard and kitsch but devoid of any charm and Grauzone's 'Raum', remixed by Ata, sounds like the angular sounds of Zongamin about ten years too late. And what to say of Digitalism's remix of the Rapture's 'Sail Away', already a song that felt like Bono forcing a sherbet dip down your throat? Here you can witness it being turned into an overblown electro weepy ballad - it so badly wants to be a lighters in the air moment. Hell, it probably is if you are 17 and think Deadmau5 invented trance.

There are a few better moments. The squeaky bass and distorted shuffle of 83's 'Hey Today!' actually achieves what a lot of this album attempts and Alex Gopher's 'Brain Leech' has the feeling of walking away from a loved one at the end of a glorious day yet still feeling rejected... It achieves the pop-electro nexus that the Ed Banger and Kitsuné fraternity seem to have lost entirely.

Whilst this album may not be a total misfire it certainly isn't a convincing return to form and it represents a low point in the recent history of DJ-Kicks releases. But then again maybe this album isn't for fans of that series in the first place.

DJ Kicks by Digitalism is out tomorrow on !K7, available to order from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

EP Review: Tell Them - Seconds

The original version of this EP from electronic duo Seconds is a lush laid back electronic pop song. It reminds me a lot of James Yuill's saccharin yet melancholic 'This Sweet Love', with the interplay between a lilting guitar and the soft vocals of guest vocalist Lines Luti (A.K.A Little Children) striking a sparse, melodic note.

This is a different record though of course. The production is darker and the vocals slightly more haunting. It's a melting pot of house and proper folk song writing that will appeal to fans that complain about a lack of 'real' music as much as it will to fans of dance music.

The EP includes three remixes, all from Charles Webster,  entitled "Earl Jam" Dub, Club Mix and "Earl Jam" Interpretation. The dub is typically vocal free, a building progressive track of sparsely arranged synths whilst the "Earl Jam" Interpretation is that again but extended in length and scope with the vocal back in place. The club mix keeps the vocal and gives it an almost samba influence bass line. Of the three the "Earl Jam" interpretation is best - a track that gradually builds into the kind of tight, elastic piece Simian Mobile Disco do well.

Tell Them is out now on Baasaal records, available to buy digitally from Juno.

Stream below on Spotify [account required]: