Album Review: Nonfiction - The Range

I've been following Donky Pitch a release from Niño back in July 2011 yet they have only just got around to releasing their first long-player. It comes from The Range, whose Seneca EP I praised earlier this year.

It's a fitting debut release for the label - The Range has provided some of their best material to date and he ploughs a middle ground through the varied sound Donky Pitch deliver, combining disparate electronic and urban styles such as jungle, grime and R&B.

Nonfiction expands on the ideas of The Range's earlier EPs and uses the extra time to blow things out a little bit further. The resulting album is wider in scope and has a little more emotional depth. From opener "Loftmane" there is a cool distance and an urbane aloofness to the music that makes the album feel like a night drive through gritty alleyways perceived through a veneer of expensive automobile glass windshield.

"Jamie" is a fusion of delicate piano melodies and distorted drum beats with a distant rap aggressively pushing an agenda of isolation that reinforces the sense that this is an album about emotional distance within crowded spaces. "FM Myth" builds from a relatively gentle drum beat that stumbles forward whilst a high-pitched synth melody rides above to a full-on jungle grime assault, complete with serious low-end bass.

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Nonfiction - The Range

The Range's key achievement is that he managed to make the tracks feel distinct yet part of a whole. "Hamiltonian" starts with a fragile and exposed piano and string couplet that is layered over time with a series of additional electronic elements - bass, drum patterns, samples, even an air raid siren - yet it doesn't sound ridiculous in the way this description suggests, instead a sad, urgent rhythm emerges. In it's constrained length Nonfiction feels like a densely packed short story - all ideas and no padding.

Nonfiction is brought to close on "Metal Swing", a kinetic piece with rhythms that scurry along the floor as another distant vocal is cut and looped and sliced into its own percussive movement. An couple of electronic pads, one delivering bass and the other more melodic, provide a warmth as the album loops itself out of existence.

Ultimately Nonfiction is short and sweet and a welcome debut from Donky Pitch.

Nonfiction is released through Donky Pitch on 14 October, pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link].  Check out the trailer below:

Album Review: Reunion - Alex Barck

Alex Barck has slowly been drip-feeding tracks from his Reunion album for most of this year but this is the first opportunity we've had to hear the whole album, due out on Sonar Kollektiv tomorrow, in its entirety.

Reunion lives up to the promise of all those singles. The album is inspired by Barck's move to the staggeringly picturesque La Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean and those singles still boast a glossy tropical sound. "Re-Set" still comes across like the soundtrack to a pure blue landscape, the sea extending to the horizon only to meet more expansive blue sky. Jonathan Bäckelie, AKA Ernesto, featured and co-wrote both "Don't Hold Back" and "We Get High" on previous releases. The former's bluesy anger is still spat like bullets from Bäckelie's mouth, but it's joined by a new and similarly deep track in album opener "Doubter", which sways as a windy percussion stirs around the vocals and conjures a disco soul track with Eastern influence.

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Reunion - Alex Barck

Pete Josif, the White Lamp vocalist who delivered the "Re-Set" vocal and also resides on Sonar Kollektiv, delivers another track in "Spinning Around'. It's similarly enthusiastic, full of dreamy couplets that capture the spring of love only to be followed with doubting and pleading at the thought of it all falling apart. "Move Slowly", with a building cacophony of noise, sounds like a foreboding hot mess of excitement.

There are several instrumentals sandwiched between the vocalised cuts and they shine just as brightly. The album concludes with the title track, itself a climatic 11-minute instrumental that starts gently but slathers the gently composed melodies in clattering drums and warbling bass to create a fitting full-stop amongst the sound of birds circling...

Reunion is undoubtedly one of my favourite albums of this year. It has a widescreen vision and is full of detail and yet it also feels remarkably restrained, free of gimmicks and skits and just focused on one crucial thing: deliver 12 remarkable tracks.

Reunion is out tomorrow of Sonar Kollektiv, available to order now from Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3 [affiliate links]. 

Album Review: Metafather - Imbogodom

Metafather is the third limited edition album from Imbogodom and their final part in their BBC Bush House trilogy. The album was recorded back in 2011 during the final days of the BBC's Bush House building as it was going through it's decommissioning process.

Bush House was the hub for the BBC's World Service for over 70 years. With the building positioned in London Imbogodom felt that it was well positioned to tap into London's hidden audible secrets and the duo spent evenings between 2006 and 2011 situated within Studio 6, deep within the building's subterranean section.

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Metafather - Imbogodom

Metafather is a sonic experiment that pulls noises together from long lost tapes within the building and uses them for the basis of something new. The album weaves through moments of abstraction but grounds these with moments of psychedelic yet more conventional song-writing. There are moment of haunted elegance such as "Voices of Lists", which feels like a song playing itself, a surreal folk band possessed like something out of Paranormal Activity. "Mirror Dust" is less alienating, a cosmic ballad of glittering gold and silver piano and guitars that bounces around the audible space the duo are creating their work within.

Deeply textural moments provide the album's abstracted pieces, such as the rhythmic and cyclical "The Living Creatures", a track with a distorted and confused spoken word sample and repetitive mechanical instrumentation. Again, it feels in control of itself, the sound of an old studio haunted by reflections of audio that has seeped into the walls over the years,

There are moments where Imobogodom even manage to meld these two disparate approaches successfully - "Behold The Whirlwind" is filled with echoes and feedback set against a series of vocal chants.

In starting with the third part of this experiment it is difficult not to feel like I am interrupting an art installation mid-way through its performance. Everything here feels complex and with little explanation. It only adds to the intrigue - Metafather is a deeply experiential album.

Metafather is released on 14 October through Thrill Jockey, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on LP [affiliate link]. 

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Imbogodom

EP Review: Giving It All - Bondax

Bondax have been bothering the more popular and accessible end of house music for a year or so now - this new release follows up on Gold, and manages to take their sound to the next level.

"Giving It All" arrives as popular dance music seems to be heading firmly back into the disco sound that led to the dreaded 'Funky House' sound popular just over ten years ago. Thankfully Bondax are somewhat better than Phats & Smalls. This is a polished house track complete with infectious piano riffs, sunny and soulful female vocals and just a dash of Balearic ambience... But it's undoubtedly aimed at the charts as much as the dancefloor, with the sheen almost tangible, yet it's so catchy it is hard not to at least admire the brassiness.

The release comes with three mixes. The FKJ Remix is cut-up with a laid back funky approach that contrasts to the original and is a bit less overtly commercial. The Friend Within Remix pushes the piano up in the mix and layers a thick, dubby sound over everything else - it has a harder, garage-influenced sound than anything else here.

Joe Goddard predictably delivers the star remix here, his version instantly notable for its comparative subtlety. Stripping the track back to the vocal and a simple cosmic bass line this is much closer to a picturesque sunset then a meander through grimey bars and clubs full of coloured shots and stag-dos. The vocals are free of effects, giving them a much more honest feel, and a organic feeling percussion that still retains a mechanical junkyard edge adds some movement.

 Giving It All is out now on Relentless, available from Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link]. Watch the video below:

Video: In The Cold - Lewis May feat. Eleanor

More dub-step influenced melancholic indie R&B from Lewis May, who brought us the excellent "Blurs" by Bleeding Colours last year. This comes from a similar place but feels a little less minimal with just a bit more warmth and soul.

It's an atmospheric track that still manages to deliver a catchy hook.