Download: Watching - Parralax

We've seen a sunny start to April in England and as such the soundtrack has changed a bit - whilst I had been knee-deep in minimal as a result of the love for Nicolas Jaar's debut things have lightened up. As a result I've been busting out some soul and house and when I checked back through the inbox and unearthed this jem from Parralax I couldn't not share:

Watching Free Download by Parralax

Parralax labels this as dubstep, but to be honest this has more going on than most stuff I'd care to tag that label on. The hit-of-sunshine vibe is pure liquid drum 'n' bass and the sample work smacks of the quality normally confined to hip-hop.

Click the down arrow to download and check Parralax's Facebook page to stay up to date.

If you are looking for more summer fun (and are UK based) you may want to check out my latest Spotify playlist, inspired by an attempt to make something that took in soul and house.

BP x

Video: What Is It That You Want - Blackroom

Blackroom - What Is It That You Want from BLACKROOM on Vimeo.

Blackroom, formerly known as Lorraine (we can see why they ditched that idea) hail from Norway and it would appear they got tired of waiting for New Order to get back together and just decided to do it themselves. So yes, 'What Is It That You Want' really sounds like it could be a New Order track - albeit one given a little bit of a prog-trance remix with those thick keyboard stabs - but it's catchy enough that I forgive it.

 

The video here is directed by Jørgen Håland and despite its minimalism it manages to convey the dance floor alienation of the record.

 

'What Is It That You Want' is out now on Souldrop, available from Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link]. More on Blackroom on their official site (which currently points at MySpace).

 

BP x

Mix: Hi-Hat Club Minimix by DJ Illiaz

I've touched on the Hi-Hat Club before, about a year ago when DJ Dexter released volume three, and so was excited to take hear that the label behind the series, Melting Pot, are to release a box set containing all five albums released to date.

If you are unfamiliar with the Hi-Hat Club it is basically a series of hip-hop producer albums - a bit like BBE's well known Beat Generation series (in which J Dilla's entry predictably owns) but with a slightly more cosmopolitan feel.

Hi-Hat Club Box Set Minimix (DJ Illiaz) by MPMCGN

Anyway - it's a pretty nice spring day here in England today and this Minimix of the series put together by DJ Illiaz is just the ticket: laid back and jazzy. It certainly makes me want to check out the rest of the Hi-Hat series.

Tracklisting below:

Twit One - Windyridge 
Hulk Hodn - Rawissue 
Suff Daddy - Chinatown Chill 
Dexter - One For Yusef 
Brenk - Cannibal Love 
Fid Mella - Hahaha 
FS Green - 1 Up 
Full Crate - Never Never 
djAdlib - Tatsusan

The Hi-Hat Club Box Set is out now on MPM, although it doesn't look to have had an UK release yet so keep them peeled. It includes five LPs, two CDs and a 52-page booklet.

BP x

Album Review: Underneath The Pine - Toro Y Moi

Toro Y Moi's debut was one of my real highlights of last year... That rare thing: an album that lives up to the blogger hype (yes, appreciate this is a blog and so I would say that...)

Full of funky J Dilla style loops, soulful low-in-the-mix vocals and tight eighties flourishes Causes Of This stands out as the best of what the chill wave genre can offer. It may have had the odd moment of weakness but its highlights more than outweigh them.

Underneath The Pine is unexpected. It would have been easy to just focus on taking Causes Of This and re-making it without the sub-par moments: an easy route to sophomore critical success. Instead Toro Y Moi appears to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. The funky slabs of eighties synth are gone, replaced with a more natural sounding fuzzy seventies vibe, and the hip-hop influence has all but disappeared.

The result feels like the Carpenters covered by Animal Collective. The production here is immaculate and Chazwick Bundick's talent in this area really shows - this is a tight record. 'New Beat' is a part stomping funk number, part freeform jazz experiment and 'Divinia' is a gentle, slow paced ballad marked by it's piercing piano refrain. 'Got Blinded' is perhaps Bundick's finest vocal performance yet, his falsetto tones sounding more vulnerable than ever.

But is this the point? Underneath The Pine sounds like a frigging brilliant psychedelic album by a seventies soul artist. Which is admittedly fantastic. But ultimately this isn't the album we wanted - it's interesting, sure, but Toro Y Moi appears to have lost something along the way.

This week I got into a debate following the piece on Justice's new single over whether artists are okay just staying the same or if they need to continuously move on. My view is that progression is crucial but what I hadn't considered is the importance of time. Justice has let years fall away but have come back as if nothing has changed in the world. Toro Y Moi has done the opposite - a year after his first album we have a follow up that feels like it skips an important bridging album.

Underneath The Pine is a lovely album - it just wasn't the album we wanted.

BP x

Underneath The Pine is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

MP3: The Red Kiss (The Magician Precious 80's Dub) - The Aikiu

Aikiu is the result of a collaboration between Alex Aikiu and his friends Julien Vichnievsky and Cedric Pilooski. Alex was born in Paris but grew up in Africa and this music apparently draws from both his early love of pop culture and his experiences in Africa.

'The Red Kiss' is drenched in 80s references, and this remix from former member of Aeroplane, The Magician, really ramps those up. The result is a heady rush of Phil Collins drums and Rick Astley vocals. We're not too proud to dance to that sort of thing round my way and this makes me sort of glad that the Aeroplane split gave us two different versions of the trademark Aeroplane sound rather than one.

And just check out that look: Strong or what?

Download 'The Red Kiss (The Magician Precious 80's Dub)' by Aikiu on MP3 here [right click, save as].