EP Review: Taking Over - Joe Goddard

One fifth of Hot Chip, Joe Goddard has been teasing his EP for a little while now, having first snuck out the rather lush 'She Burns' back in May on Soundcloud. 

That track maintains much of it's crystalline beauty, Mara Carlyle's vocals wispy and delicate against Goddard's fuzzy melodic tinkering and unpretentious bass work. It's the rest of the material on this that interests me most though, and it's a varied collection of tracks in ambition and focus if not quality...

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Taking Over - Joe Goddard

Taking Over starts with 'Step Together', a collaboration with Boris Dlugosch, who… Is apparently still alive? And thankfully appears to be sens-Moose T. Which is a relief. Dlugosch seemingly gives the track it's Spanish influenced keys whilst Goddard lays down a vocal in his trademark under-stated and bruised fashion... It's enjoyable but undeniably the least interesting thing here.

The title track is more pop than dance, a spectral electronic ballad with gently picked guitar melodies and Goddard's softest possible vocal delivery. It's a beautiful track and it feels surprisingly personal, dealing with the love of the music as it starts to consume you at that moment in a night out when everything comes together… Mind altering substances optional, of course.

Immediately before 'Taking Over' and potentially from the same inspirational source but very different in terms of it's execution is 'Bassline '12'. The most heads-down track on the EP it's a slow building house track with a crescendo of stark metallic keys that expands over nine-minutes to make it the longest track here. Goddard manages to combine a sense of upfront danceability with the sort of melodic and melancholic depth Hot Chip are known for. Goddard's work with Raf Rundall as the 2 Bears was always more about the nightclub than Hot Chip but at times it felt laking in depth in comparison. 'Bassline '12' is a more considered and ultimately stronger offering, suggesting Goddard may have a lot to offer on his own.

 Taking Over is out now, available to order on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link]. Stream in full on Spotify:

Stream: Time For A Change - French Kiwi Juic

I'm currently dying of heat exhaustion at work in the British July weather (desk based thermometer reads: 31 degrees!) but this new EP from Parisian born producer French Kiwi Juice is definitely helping keep me going.

 Time For A Change is out this week via Roche Musique. On it FKJ combines hot and sunny disco house sounds with a hip-hop edge and just a dash of soft rock... Check it out via the embeds below or you can stream it on FKJ's Soundcloud page.

Album Review: Vapor - Yosi Horikawa

The press release for Yosi Horikawa argues the devil is in the detail. It's easy to understand why. Horikawa's Vapor is a highly textual piece that creates music out of noisy layered sonics and boasts a sophisticated and ambitious sense of scale.

Vapor channels musique concrete and dubby looped samples to conjure something global in scope and seemingly heavily considered. After the opening intro, 'Bump' is a suitable indication of where Horikawa aims to take the listener. It's a tribal-influenced piece full of complex and layered sounds and, at its peak, a template for Vapor as a whole. Similarly 'Rainbow' is tropical and dizzying in ambition, a musical collage constructed of soft ambient chords and a flourish of rhythms constructed from water based samples.

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Vapor - Yosi Horikawa

Elsewhere 'Letter' is a fragile and and subtle piece that combines a broad melody with the tight detail of wound gears and spinning chains, creating a somewhat spellbinding level of melodic detail out of sounds that seemed to have been organised with impossible detail. 'Grandpa' is climatic, a moment of sun-baked tribal irrepressible celebration that starts to heave the curtain closed on a complex album.

The problem with Vapor is that it is here for too long. Yosi Horikawa constructs an album with the same earthly majesty of John Talabot's wonderful 2012 debut, but in applying it to a more freeform genre allows it to blossom. Sadly in doing so he squanders much of the magic, employing a 71-minute album structure at the expense of the listener and just about everything but length.

As the album title suggest, the music here is best consumed in a semi-transient form, at its best it is also at its most difficult to pin down. Sadly in chaining it to a long-form construct we get a album that shines in the present but fades over time. Yosi Horikawa's music might be better consumed in mini-album format. You should listen to its songs but not its whole story.

 Vapor is out now on First Word Records, available on CD and MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links]. Stream now on Spotify:

Stream: Let It Up - encore!

If you don't know me by now you'll never ever really know me: I'm just a sucker for the Talking Heads sound. Encore! appear to be doing it with aplomb, as demonstrated of this wigged out electro piece. There's definitely a hint of LCD Soundsystem to this and the rough synth work is pretty awesome... Turn it on and turn it up.

EP Review: Dirty Glam Jams - Munk

Munk is best known for co-running the Gomma label alongside Mr. Telonius, but he's also always had a decent line of his own releases. His 2006 James Murphy / Nancy Whang collaboration 'Kick Out The Chairs' was one of his strongest tracks to date and in some ways the live sounding ambitions of this EP aren't a million miles from that.

The difference is that this is very much a disco EP, whereas some of that earlier work had a bit more punk. Munk sees this release as a protest against all the bland bleep-heavy deep and tech house that has flooded the market in recent years. Dirty Glam Jams is a refreshing antidote to the sound.

First track 'Munkysound' feels like a new calling card - a decadent slice of contemporary disco that places a bit of a focus on real instruments than many modern disco producers. It still isn't Random Access Memories, mind - it's modern in approach, but the liberally applied freestyle vocals and fiendish bass licks feel authentically disco.

On 'Nigerian Jam' Munk channels his inner Fela Kuti, with plenty of Afrobeat coming through on the big brassy kicks and a bumping dubby bass line. 'Coolo Bongo', inspired by the Boogaloo sound and 70s New York Latin funk, is a jerky number with some raw brass and a looped percussion line.

The final original track, 'Woman', is more heads-down and ass-shaking than anything else here, a focused bass forming the track's foundation whilst a strong vocal hook provides the chorus. The percussion is what keeps the track moving and we get more Latin-brass to keep the track feeling old school.

The EP closes on a remix of 'Munkysound' from German producer Moullinex. This mix is one of the standout moments on the EP, giving the track a more dancefloor-friendly feel with a bit of a French touch vibe to the filters. It's a little less creative than Munk's original, but probably a bit more fun to lose your shit to. The bridge is particularly fine, with a softer, more melodic hook before a large drop that is sure to do some wonderful things this summer.

 Dirty Glam Jams is released through Gomma on 4 July and you can preorder it from Amazon.co.uk on MP3 for just £1.79 [affiliate link]. Check out that lovely Moullinex mix of 'Munkysound' below: