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Been meaning to post this since it dropped earlier in the week, but December being what it is I'm only getting to it now. Anyway - a killer remix of the emotive closing track from Caribou's latest album Our Love from Carl Craig. The melodies are stripped back here creating an even more amplified disconnect - Dan Swain's vocals are all the more exposed against Craig's distorted, mechanical bass. So good.
Butterfly is the debut EP from Snowpoet and you would do well to think of it as a bit of an early Christmas present. The group are led by two core musicians, London bassist Chris Hyson and Irish vocalist Lauren Kinsella, but they work as a collective to combine experimental and improvisational music and spoken word.
They describe themselves as an alternative folk act but Butterfly is as close to jazz as folk, full of free form melodies and experimental instrumentation. The EP opens with Always, a shimmering and polished entrance full of details that glisten as Kinsella's spoken words walk you in, giving way to a soaring chorus and extravagant, cosmic closing third.
After a gently introspective interlude in the form of 1953, the titular Butterflies gently weaves itself around the listener, guitars panning back and forth as pianos twinkle. The music gives way to the sound of rain gently falling, a transition to runs into the final track Alive With Closed Eyes.
It is a dramatic, stark conclusion to the EP - raw and exposed in a way that contrasts to the polish of Butterfly's opener. A compelling release, Snowpoet are at turns strange and beautiful.
Butterfly is out now. Listen to Always below, stream the EP in full on Soundcloud or buy on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].
Lovely new track from Portico. The band have undergone something of a rebirth - previously Portico Quartet, they consider this new guise with a shortened name a new start, and their forthcoming album Living Fields a debut. This fresh start sees three of the four members that comprised Portico Quartet collaborating with three vocalists for the new album - Joe Newman of Alt-J, Jamie Woon and Jono McCleery, who features on this track.
Living Fields is due out on 23 March through Ninja Tune.
Witness Morgan Geist sprinkling his trademark awesome dust all over this track from Les Sins, the house side-project of Toro y Moi (real name Chazwick Bradley Bundick). Classy body music, this track is all sorts of great. Purchase it on MP3 / lossless directly from label Carpark Records here.
Massive epic remix from former M83 member Pierre-Marie Maulini, who now operates under the name STAL. This takes the original Years & Years track into wholly new directions and is well worth a listen if you are a fan of big synths and cinematic choruses. Like.