“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy
Accompanied by an artsy music video in which Twigs gives
birth to rainbow ribbons in the back of a van amongst other surreal scenes
straight out of Salvador Dali’s nightmares, this latest 16-minute EP sees the
London-born experimental singer continuing to alienate pop fans in pursuit of
her own weird and wonderful style.
I single out the singles that made the biggest impression on
me. This week Boots gets brilliantly bizarre, Deafheaven get darker and ditch
the daintiness and Carly Rae Jepsen cuts the cuteness settling sadly for cookie
cut crap.
THE BEST:
'Aquaria' - Boots ft. Angel Deradoorian
To a backdrop of jittery dark electronic sounds American
producer/singer delivers this creepy yet alluring new song. Squelching bass and
industrial clicks weave in and out of one another whilst Boots shifts from
semi-rapping to groovy singing. I picture a handsome psychopath seducing his
prey whilst listening to this. Cali rock singer Angel Deradoorian offers some brief
female guest vocals.
'Brought
to the Water' - Deafheaven
I find it very hard to feel happy when someone’s screaming
at me. Deafheaven’s cheery approach to black metal on their last album Sunbather didn’t click very well with
me for that reason – I need a bit of anger and gloom to accompany my shrieks
and blast beats, otherwise it’s as confusing as watching Freddie Krueger in a
rom com. This new track thankfully seems to be less happy and more in keeping
with the evil metal spirit I’m used to. Eerie church bells kick off the track
followed by a series of melancholy riffs. Admittedly, the mood turns happy
half-way through the track, but contrasted against the gloomy opening it gives
the band’s happier sound a new dimension.
'Juniper' - Amanda X
Philly all-female rock trio serve up this ode to unrequited
love. Sour guitar melodies and an old worn production style reminiscent of The
Cranberries adds to the tortured vibe of the song. Its an aesthetic that has me
hyped for their upcoming EP, Hundreds and
Thousands.
Stop deliberately using slang that nobody understands! What
the hell is a nae nae and why would I want to break my legs? I can’t dance to
these instructions if I don’t understand any of them, and yes, I’m too ignorant
to want to understand them.
'Your Type' - Carly Rae Jepsen
‘Call me Maybe’ and
‘I Really like you’ were both cute, but now the sugariness is starting wear off
and Carly Rae Jepsen is starting to sound like a stale second-rate Taylor Swift.
'Flodgin' - King Louie
His squeaky vocal inflections remind me of how my voice
sounded when I was going through puberty, and I’d rather forget about that awkward
phase in my life, as would we all.
Once again, I round up my favourite and least favourite singles from the last seven days. This week, the chick from Moloko gets weird and the dude from JLS gets stupid.
THE BEST:
'Evil
Eyes' - Roisin Murphy
One half of the nineties dance-pop duo Moloko, Roisin Murphy
delivers this new weird and wonderful solo track. It’s a sonic journey consisting
of electronic bleeps, massive chord splashes and funky guitars accompanied by slightly-occult
themed lyrics about love. The music video is a bit of a trip. What’s the chicken-eating
scene all about?
'Pet U' - Curl Up
Dedicated to his pet cat, this cute EDM instrumental from
New York producer Curl Up combines shimmering guitars and vibrant synth stabs.
The result sounds like something out of a brightly-coloured Japanese video
game. A video game, I can only assume, containing lots of cats. Clearly Curl Up
is quite fond of felines – his facebook profile picture even has him cradling
one.
'A Knife In
The Ocean' - Foals
Oxford rock band, Foals, have exchanged the groovy funk rock
sound of their last LP for a more slow and brooding sonic feel. The
reverb-drenched guitars make this track sound absolutely colossal. I picture
myself standing on a cliff whilst listening to this, hearing it echo at me from
across the void.
'Real Joy' – Fono
Get your Zoolander ‘Blue steel’ face on and start vogueing.
The wavy detuned fifth chords make for perfect catwalk material. I first heard
this song whilst being dragged round New Look so maybe that’s why all I can
think of whilst listening to this is clothes and fashion.
'Hidden' – Chagall
Amsterdam-based singer and producer Chagall crafts this
gloomy and atmospheric experimental pop song. The scary flecks of industrial electronica
peppered throughout had me poised on the edge of my seat, half-expecting the
whole thing to plummet into some freaky dark techno breakdown. I’m a little
relieved it didn’t.
THE WORST:
'Get Stupid' - Aston Merryweather
It’s impossible to hate this song because it’s so stupidly
feelgood. However, Aston Merryweather sounds so stupidly similar to Bruno Mars
and the instrumental sounds so stupidly similar to Blurred Lines and the title sounds so stupidly similar to 'Get Lucky' that I can’t
help but get annoyed by how stupidly derivative it all is.
‘Woo this that shit you didn’t want me on’ the Louisiana rapper opens
the album with to the accompaniment of a soaring choral beat followed by some
genuinely tight flows. For a brief moment I was genuinely excited. Lil Wayne
seemed to have upped his game, finally scrapping the bland poppy beats and
actually riding these beats instead slurring over them like a drunkard.
It's that time of the week where I insult your favourite band accompanied by lots of broken Soundcloud links. Adjust your speakers and belt up.
THE BEST:
'Moving Mountains' –
Disclosure ft. Brendan Reilly
The UK house duo have slowed things down with this slinky
electroballad featuring sexy r&b vocals from London singer Brendan Reilly.
The whole song builds up to some tasty but smooth trap flavourings towards the
end. I’m now pretty psyched for these guys upcoming sophomore album, Caracal. Check out the track here whilst
it’s still available for stream (skip to 1:29:00 to listen).
‘Another Body’ – El-P
Master hip hop producer El-P has recently refrained from making
beats entirely out of cat noises in order to deliver this epic instrumental set
to appear during the end credits of the latest Fantastic Four film. It isn’t
very hip hop flavoured, but still shows off the producer’s talents, composed of
cinematic trumpets, fat strings and brooding layers of electronica. Let’s hope
the movie lives up to it’s soundtrack and isn’t a pile of wank like the
original Fantastic Four film (yeah I said it! Isn’t ‘pile of wank’ such a weird
expression?)
'Get Up Get Down' –
Mick Jenkins
I guess you could call this a party tune. The hook’s punchy
and the beat’s pretty wavy. However, Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins still manages
to drop some socially conscious rhymes in the second half, keeping hold of his witty
personality and preventing himself from turning into another Drake clone.
'Crackula' – Pizza
Tramp
‘What do you get when
you cross a horrible Welsh punk band with zero editing skills and footage shot
on a digital camera. CRACKULA.’ That video description alone has won me
over.
THE WORST:
‘Throne’ – Bring Me The Horizon
Once a shitty metalcore band, Bring Me The Horizon have now
decided to become a shitty carbon copy of Linkin Park. Too harsh? Life is
harsh. Deal with it.
‘Restless’ - New
Order
What decade is this? Out of the blue, eighties electro kings
New Order are back with a new single. Unfortunately, it isn’t very good.
Bernard Summer’s disinterested vocals always had a dark undertone to them, but
here they just simply sound disinterested. Also where are the groovy synths? With
its flat guitars and strings, the whole thing might as well be a modern U2
song.
Aussie psychedelic rock band, Tame Impala, have traded in rugged
guitars for shiny synths. The result is a sound somewhere between the Blade
Runner soundtrack and those glossy eighties power ballads that I could always
picture myself driving down a highway to at night if I could afford a car and
hadn’t failed my test five times, but anyway we’re getting side-tracked.
Cat noises and train station jingles. You can make a song out of anything these days. A lot of this week's music has been pretty strange. It's an even mixture of entertainingly good and entertainingly bad.
THE BEST:
'No Chill' - Skrillex & Vic Mensa
‘Practice? What the
fuck is practice?’ Chicago rapper Vic Mensa is sounding ridiculously
arrogant here and arrogance usually isn't my thing, but I'm willing to overlook it due to the badass beat. Who knew that the iconic dubstep producer could also
make a mighty trap beat? That brass sounds huge. It’s like a fanfare to the
apocalypse. Listen here.
'Rattle that Lock' - David Gilmour
If you’ve ever spent time in a French railway station you
may recognise the SNCF jingle sampled throughout this song. Personally the
sound brings back nostalgic memories, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of
French commuters find this rock veteran's new song intolerable.
'Like I Like It' - Vantage
Talking of France, here’s a little disco-house tune from the garlic-and-cheese-loving country itself. The funky middle section is extremely
creative and I’m loving the shimmery use of synth vox.
'Meowrly' – Meow the
Jewels
Rap duo Run the Jewels have released a remix of their 2014 single 'Early' made entirely of cat noises. The use of purring as a substitute for bass made me chuckle. I can't believe they didn't think to call it 'Purrly' though...
'I Need Chickens' –
Young Thug
After all the unwavering hate I’ve given garbling Atlanta rapper Young Thug on this blog I
almost regret admitting that I kind of like this song. I guess it appeals to my goofy sense
of humour the same way Riff Raff does. Producer Mike Will Made It delivers a
fun beat complete with 808 cowbell, and Young Thug makes hilarious chicken noises over the
top (they sound more like pigeon noises to be honest, but let's not get pedantic).
THE WORST:
Black Magic – Little Mix
UK girl group, Little Mix, wish they were American whilst promoting the idea that you need to be hot to be successful. That's just the music video.
