Critics of electronica often complain that much of it has a cold, impersonal quality -- that warmth and humanity are missing from what can be a very producer-driven medium. But there is no law stating that electronica has to be cold; it all comes down to how the participants decide to use technology. And technology is used in a very human way on ...
In one of the two essays in the liner notes for 18, Moby alludes to his past as a "rigid" idealist about life and music, expressing that he's tried to open himself and hoping that he's succeeded. In a way, he already succeeded with his previous album, Play, a remarkable record that cannily used field recordings and blues as the basis for an expert ...
Forget the rampant labeling of Zero 7 as the "British Air," because Simple Things is a debut album that stands on its own as a chilled, subtle collection of organic songs. There are hints of Air, but there are equally relevant comparisons that might be made with Morcheeba, Rae & Christian, Nightmares on Wax, and early Massive Attack. Indeed, after ...
None of them are Brazilian, only one is a girl, and they jump around genres like a schizophrenic DJ, but all the obtuseness is just window dressing when you consider the groove and smart, playful attitude that hold the Brazilian Girls' debut together. Bouncing between house music, samba-flavored pop, and freaky dancing stoner anthems all seems ...
With their lead singer sensually delivering her witty lyrics in five different languages while the band skillfully flirts with house, dub, and plenty of other cosmopolitan genres of music in the background, the Brazilian Girls' Talk to La Bomb revisits nearly all the elements that made their 2005 self-titled debut such a thrill, but the ...
For the true follow-up to 2002's Every Day -- since 2003's Man with a Movie Camera soundtrack had actually been recorded four years earlier -- J. Swinscoe & co.'s Cinematic Orchestra produced another soundtrack, this one virtually invisible. Not long after Every Day's release, Swinscoe began writing music for another Cinematic LP, but in another ...
Lounge music is pretty much chilled-out by definition, but chillout music is not necessarily loungey. This collection achieves both states simultaneously, for better or worse, by combining the slow, funky grooves of trip-hop and nu-jazz with wanky wah-wah guitars, slinky pan-European vocals, and the occasional dollop of syrupy strings. It's a ...
Koop, the duo of Oscar Simonsson and Magnus Zingmark, seem to grasp what many other trip-hop production units never did -- that, no matter which instruments are used in your productions, digital or acoustic or electric, a sense of place is what should never be lost. Their debut album Waltz for Koop, with its languruous textures and tugging sense ...
Niyaz is something of a miniature electro-worldbeat supergroup. Consisting of singer Azam Ali (of Vas), multi-instrumentalist Loga Ramin Torkian (of Axiom of Choice), and producer/remix artist Carmen Rizzo, the trio has a sound that centers on Ali's ethereal vocals and incorporates musical elements from Iran, Pakistan, India, Western Europe, the U ...
Sweet vocal jazz for the post-club generation that could have been made decades ago, Koop's debut album finely treads the line between the hipster posturing and lounge perfection that is the specialty of acid jazz radio guru Gilles Peterson. Lush orchestration and hard bop rhythms make Waltz for Koop a pleasing sensation, but it is the rotating ...
Paul Oakenfold's Perfecto label benefits from a healthy checkbook that can license pretty much anything it wants. That helps put the star power in the track listing, but what really benefits the listener is Perfecto's impeccable taste when it comes to more mainstream chill. There's no filler on Perfecto Chills, Vol. 2, an unmixed collection of ...
After working with artists like Caetano Veloso, David Byrne, and Towa Tei, Bebel Gilberto made her solo recording debut in the U.S. with Tanto Tempo, licensed for American release in 2000 by Six Degrees. It's an album of stylish, cool, contemporary bossa nova, with Gilberto's vocals a bit more assured and polished than Astrud Gilberto's classic ...
A new album from Massive Attack is an event, even if only one-third of the original group is present for the festivities. Just the group's fourth album in more than a dozen years, 100th Window marked the departure of Mushroom (permanently, after artistic differences) and Daddy G (temporarily, to raise a family), leaving only one founding member, ...
More than ten years on from the first whisperings of a dance revolution, there are scores of solid producers in the scene, figures with all the talent, historical knowledge, and judgment necessary to rework most any tracks from the Verve archive. Surprisingly, Verve Remixed strays from the label's crossover-heavy '60s and '70s material (the ...
Although this is his debut solo album, Mozez (aka Osmond Wright) has been singing professionally since 1994, when he was half of a successful gospel duo called Spirits. Following a stint as singer for Zero 7, he put out this strikingly unusual album, one that sets out a dreamy, almost gauzy, and deeply personal vision of modern R&B. Opening with a ...
At best, a rich man's Air. At worst, tedious, superfluous, hippy-dippy, overly ironic trash. Lemon Jelly .KY can be both, of course -- often at the same time -- as Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen compile their first three EPs of fizzy chill-out for those late-night lava lamp staring sessions. It's downtempo for the acid generation. An eschewing of ...
Prolific producer David Kosten's second solo album positions Faultline as another in a line of electronic musicians who excel in blending moody tones with guest vocals. The list of collaborators on Your Love Means Everything is quite impressive. Guests include Michael Stipe, Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips, Chris Martin from Coldplay, newcomer ...
Filling the roles of central artist, composer, and director, Me'Shell Ndegéocello takes a left turn with Dance of the Infidel, a very loose affair that nonetheless flows with a natural grace. It is, for the most part, a jazz album, indicated by a shifting lineup that includes Jack DeJohnette, Oliver Lake, Don Byron, and Kenny Garrett, along with ...
It's been four long years since Mars Williams and Liquid Soul have issued another chapter in their ongoing dissemination of musical genres under the jazz banner. One-Two Punch, the band's debut for the Telarc label, is a lot rougher, rawer, and more upfront raucous than anything they've done to date. While the slicker grooves of uptown soul, funk, ...
Geogaddi, the most anticipated sophomore full-length from an IDM act since Aphex Twin's SAW 2 in 1994, certainly looks and feels similar to the 1998 Boards of Canada debut, Music Has the Right to Children. The package design includes artful, bleached-out photos of children playing, while the lengthy track listing balances short vignettes with ...
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