Awesomely delicately naked R&B from Chelsea Lankes on new single Love. Hate. Pain. Killer.
I love everything about this - Chelsea's vocal delivery is spot on, like someone getting up from a ten-rounds of an emotional battering, hurt and battered but determined to go on. The track is taken from the Vice short, Mr. Happy, by Collin Tilley and featuring Chancelor Bennett, better known as Chance the Rapper.
Gorgeous debut track from EMBRZ featuring guest vocals from Amy Rose... Silent is full of lovely electronic touches and blissful piano chords, complemented beautifully with Rose's vocals. Producer / artist EMBRZ is remaining cagey about the song's subject:
"I finished writing Silent just before Christmas. The last step was getting an amazing vocal down, and Amy was perfect” explains Jack Casey continuing "There is a story behind the track, but I like the idea of leaving listeners to their own interpretation. Whatever it means to someone is what it means to someone."
Check out Silent below:
What comes after pink, blue and green? Well according to Eskimo Recordings it is orange... And so they follow up The Green Collection with this new offering, The Orange Collection - the fourth entry in their colour and emotion inspired series.
As my previous coverage of these releases highlights my feelings on these albums have been mixed. Yet I still find it hard to resist giving each new entry a listen, if only out of some desire to recapture some of the glittering brilliance of Eskimo's earlier compilations. The Orange Collection does its best to return your effort in listening to it. Unlike the other entries, which usually felt no real connection to the colour in question, entitling this The Orange Collection makes sense. It's warm, sitting on the edge of sunset... Though whether this is a deliberate refinement of focus or a happy coincidence is up for debate. Perhaps Eskimo simply got around to picking one of the most Balearic of colours
Eskimo has retained its latter-day fondness for soft electronics and indie vocals but in contrast to previous entries this album feels as Mediterranean influenced as it does Scandinavian, conjuring the feeling of beaches and beachside swimming pools.
It is therefore fitting then that opening track Odds Are Good by Anoraak feels exactly like a dip in a pool out in the sun. Renegades, by Majestique feat. Lakshmi, is similarly sunny... Warm pads and synth stabs creating an infectious and wistful sense, almost like missing the holiday before it has even ended. Like most things here it is almost shockingly polished, but that adds to the perfect summer holiday feeling.
Hold It Like You Own It by Horixon and Maya is a glittering moment of electronic pop - a powerful vocal hook riding a deep sine wave baseline. The album also features two tracks I've featured recently - Du Tonc's Animals and This Soft Machine's On & On - and both feel right at home here in this set.
Amongst all the shimmering pop are some more wonky moments. Moscoman's Fernandez is a hit of Italo-influenced dub that sounds like it soundtracks your weirdest cowboy dreams... Drums clatter as a stark lone guitar riff picks its way amidst a world of synth-kitsch. Elsewhere Marvin and Guy's Unfailling Fall is a deep psychedelic trip, a stark contrast to the lighter moments that make up most of this album.
Closing with the Mees Dierdorp remix of Hydrogen Sea's Wear Out, The Orange Collection comes grinding to a dramatic stop. Synthetic strings swirl and vocals cry out as the album draws to a emotional yet somewhat muted finish. It is by far the best entry in this series yet, and the best album from Eskimo in some time. It is hard not to think this may just be good luck - a number of artists here have featured on previous entries after all - but perhaps they just managed to do a much better job curating the collection this time. Either way, take this with you to the pool this summer and you are guaranteed just a little warmth, no matter the weather.
The Orange Collection is released through Eskimo Recordings on 4 May. Pre-order on iTunes here [affiliate link].
The Artefact EP is the second collaborative release from electronic producer Max Cooper and pianist Tom Hodge and in short, it is stunning.
Opening with the melancholic Remnants, Hodge's piano work is sublime. Layer upon layer of gently nurtured melodies build up atop Cooper's intricately navigated and highly complex percussive electronics. The result is cinematic, emotive and beautiful - and delivers on the song's ambition to recreate the sense of objects and sounds that can trigger an emotional response. Those remnants that pull the emotion right out of you, either catching you unaware when you least expect it or used when we have an instinctive need to reminisce and to feel just a bit... More.
Teotihuacan Part 2 is based on field recordings taken from Cooper’s 2012 visit to the pyramids of Teotihuacan - a culture he describes as "destroyed and its knowledge lost, replaced with a rebuilt, but still beautiful, tourist trap". Audio for a storm whipping through the city is processed and used within the track, and the piece recreates a sad sense of loss.
Finally, on Resonant Expanse, Cooper edits, tweaks and heavily manipulates Hodge's piano work into a slowly building and wholly electronic piece. Distorted melodies build and loop to create something tougher but equally emotive.
Artefact successfully delivers instrumental electronic music with beauty and surprising emotional complexity.
Artefact is out through FIELDS on Monday. Download free bonus track Teotihuacan Part 1 from MaxCooper.net now. Check out a preview of Remnants below:
Infectious sugar-rush electronic pop from Big Data, a project from Harvard graduate Alan Wilkis, remixed here by Lefti. The original version of Business of Emotion is taken from Big Data's latest album 2.0, which features guest spots from a range of big names including Twin Shadow, Jamie Liddell and Weezer's Rivers Cuomo.
The press-sheet name-checks early-years Justice on this, and it is hard not to hear some of their shinier and more colourful moments in the sounds on display here.