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Video: Who Needs You - The Orwells

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Directed by Eddie O' Keefe Who Needs You EP out September 9th (UK) on East End/ National Anthem and September 10th (N. America) on East End/ Canvasback. "Who Needs You" on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/whoneedsyou

Slouch-garage-rock from Chicago Illinois band The Orwells here on this video for 'Who Needs You'. The track is lifted from the forthcoming National Anthem / East End Records release, due 9 September.

David Sitek produces this lead track and it's a surprisingly rough & ready sound for him, though not too far from his early (and more recent) Yeah Yeah Yeahs production work. 

You can catch the band on tour next month:

  • 9th September – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
  • 10th September – White Heat @ Madame Jo Jo’s, London
  • 11th September – Sebright Arms, London
  • 12th September – The Green Door Store, Brighton
  • 13th September – The Soup Kitchen, Manchester

Album Review: Immunity - Jon Hopkins

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Stunning time-lapse photography of crystal growth and chemical reactions soundtracked by music from Jon Hopkins' upcoming album Immunity forms the basis of this new audiovisual experience, produced in collaboration with The Creators Project. Read more: http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/microscopic-images-of-food-dye The video is a collaborative effort between art director & typographer Craig Ward, biochemist Linden Gledhill and Jon Hopkins.

Jon Hopkins has quite the cv... The press often make much of his collaborations with Coldplay but to just focus on the fact that he's been busy adding the best bits to Middle England's finest would do him a great disservice. Hopkins first came to fame playing keyboards for the cultish female vocalist Imogen Heap, he has worked with David Holmes and his soundtrack to the (rather excellent) independent sci-fi movie Monsters was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award.

Hopkins also collaborated with Brian Eno on the frantic Small Craft On A Milk Sea, and it is Eno's work that this, Hopkins' fourth solo album proper, feels closest to. Immunity is an extradonairy accomplishment in both beauty and focus.

Immunity - Jon Hopkins

With an entrance that douses the listener in crafted distortion and beats fractured like glass Hopkins' new approach initially appears to be mostly focused on delivering experimental IDM. Yet within that first track, 'We Disappear', there is a nagging melodic refrain that wins through in the end, a somewhat distressed piano loop emerging from a frenetic whirlwind of electronics.

Immunity sounds something like a car crash slowed down to 1,000 times its original length, like a Justin Bieber record stretched to the point where it is transformed from abomination into something staggering, beautiful and pure. The early tracks are intense and rapid, the crunch of distorted rhythms echoing the crunch of metal on metal on 'Open Eye Signal'. Piano is once again weaved into 'Breathe This Air' in a way the feels like humanity and perhaps tinkling glass in amongst the broader chaos of a slamming four-four beat... But things gradually begin to slow down.

'Abandon Window' marks the entrance of Immunity's second half and second act. The turning point in this album is a cinematic moment of gently stumbling piano playing that deliberately plays with the timing to once again create something that sounds very alive. It's the rear-windscreen being removed and the friendly hands of a rescue worker - compassionate and warm, the piano is surrounded by ambience, layers of found sound and musique concrète. It sounds like Trent Reznor's best work with Atticus Ross.

The three tracks that follow 'Abandon Window' use it as a template, all being slower than the album's first half and letting melody come to the fore. 'Form By Firelight' combines shuffling beats and clicks with distant melodic keys that gently hammer out a fragmented melody. The title track closes the album with traces of a vocal performance and it creates a track that feels like a balance - it is more in time and seems more content than anything else here, and it closes the album on a high. Immunity is quite brilliant.

Immunity is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links]. Preview via the video above or listen on Spotify: 

Video: You Can Stay But You Gotta Go - Quasi

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Quasi release Mole City on September 30th 2013 and also head out on a UK tour throughout December. Mole City is not in the tradition or deviating from the tradition -- it is the tradition.

Quasi: sounding like Pavement and making kooky videos involving dress-up. This is rather lovely and comes from their forthcoming album on Domino, Mole City, out 30 September. 

Video: Ride The Prejudice - Phonat

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OWSLA: owsla.com/releases/phonat-identity-theft-ep Beatport: beatport.com/release/identity-theft-ep/1090154 iTunes: smarturl.it/idtheft Like Phonat: http://facebook.com/phonat Follow Phonat: https://twitter.com/phonat Listen to Phonat: https://soundcloud.com/phonat More on Phonat: http://phonat.net

Lush video for 'Ride The Prejudice', taken from Phonat's recent Identity Theft EP. 

Phonat is Italian producer Michele Balduzzi and this EP follows up his 2008 debut. The video itself is a surreal but spectacular shape-shifting piece of modernism that really fits with the IDM / future 2-step sound of the song.  

Check it out and go to Phonat's official website for more info. 

Video: Old Skool Baby - Nudes

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performed by NUDES. concept by NUDES. directed, edited and filmed by Joe Young (Young Productions) *contains elements of 'Old School Baby' by Westbam ft. Nena. facebook.com/skindeepmusic soundcloud.com/nudesband twitter.com/Nudes_band youtube.com/user/NUDESband

Nudes have released this video ahead of their Tuesday night gig at The Old Blue Last Shoreditch. The duo are Owen Wallace Lasch and Tom Giddins and if this is anything to go by their tear-streaked psychedelic electronica could be about to blow up. The

This is actually a cover of the WestBam track 'Oldschool Baby', although it takes it's particular cue from the beautifully downtrodden yet epic Piano Mix.  Check out both below via Spotify. Nudes' take feels like New Order at these most ecstasy influenced - there's a moodiness to the male vocals that isn't present in the WestBam original that sounds like the sort of thing Sumner would lay down. The video is also great - simple but effective.