Kuedo – Dream Sequence EP
Planet Mu

Although it may seem a bit strange, Kuedo is the name given to Jamie Vex’d’s new project. Having been instrumental in the development of dubstep, it seems the veteran producer has moved on to a more electro-arcade breed of sound with the name of the EP symbolising his new ideology. The EP itself starts as it means to go on with a cavalcade of surging synths embodied in loopy yet jaunty drum beats which seem to resemble something of a hip-hop element with plenty of bass to pass around throughout. The two stand out tracks have to be; Starfox & Joy Construction, both bringing a sense of synth madness in their own unique way. Starfox has a more fast-paced edge to it whilst Joy Construction has a harder hitting maraud of synths fused effortlessly over a murky drum beat. I’d definitely recommend this one, it’s a refreshing approach which can appeal to a more generic audience.

Kuedo – Joy Construction

Buy the ‘Dream Sequence’ EP from Boomkat.

Illum Sphere – Long Live The Plan
Fat City

Illum Sphere drops the first vinyl EP of a two part album – ‘Long Live The Plan’. Hailing from Manchester his flow is hard. The first impression that actually hits you when listening to the EP is the overall sense of urban-distortion. It just seems to be the music you’d listen to whilst walking  through a rough neighbourhood in the early hours of the morning. The best track on the EP has to be Psycho, it portrays a very solemnly creepy image with the ever-present bass drops ensuring that your head keeps bopping. The EP seems to take you on a dark voyage from the terrifyingly malicious start to a more vivid finish with the final tracks entailing a more buoyant flourish of sounds. If part 2 can hold par with this, we’re in for a treat – It was supposed to drop in the early parts of 2010 but that seems unlikely now, keep an eye out for it anyway.

Illum Sphere – Psycho

Buy ‘Long Live The Plan’ from Boomkat.

Blue Daisy – Strings Detached EP
Black Acre

Even though this EP dropped late last year i’ve only just got round to listening to it and to be fair I wish I got round to it sooner because it’s simply incredible. If you’re looking for more of a dubstep meets instrumental hip-hop type of sound then look no further, Blue Daisy is your man. The EP kicks off with the self-titled track, Strings Detached. With it’s very mellow tone it expands in an array of loopy rhythms which flow quite nicely in to what has to be my favourite track, Hunterz. Plagued with an undertone of head smashing bass it sets the tone for a faster paced dash in the disappointingly short encounter, Wolf. The final track brings the EP back round to it’s original mellow ambiance with a middle-eastern tinge. The track finishes  by coming to what is in my opinion an abrupt end, after rapidly accelerating to its maximum amplitude it collapses entirely. This is quite simply an outstanding EP which I seriously recommend you get, Blue Daisy is definitely a talent to watch out for in the future.

Blue Daisy – Hunterz

Buy the ‘Strings Detached’ EP from Boomkat.

The Sunshine Underground – Nobody’s Coming To Save You

This has been out for a while now, sorry for taking so long, I’ve been busy.

I never bothered listening to these guys when they released their first album, 4 years ago, as I just wasn’t interested. I still don’t know why I bothered listening to this. Thankfully, I really enjoyed this album, there’s a lot of moments where it sounds like The Enemy (a bad thing), but a lot of times where it’s just really good.

None of the songs on this album will go down in history, but this is a very good pop album. The first two singles, Coming To Save You and We’ve Always Been Your Friends, are two brilliant songs. The songs end up sounding pretty similar, but that’s the case with most British “indie” bands nowadays anyway. It’s definitely not a bad album.

Listen To: Coming To Save You, We’ve Always Been Your Friends, A Warning Sign

The Sunshine Underground – Coming to Save You

The Sunshine Underground myspace stream the album

Two Door Cinema Club – Tourist History

From a “very good pop album” to a fucking brilliant one. I’ve been waiting for this album to come out for a while, and it’s definitely not disappointed. I think this will be up there with the best albums of the year, I love every song on this album … a lot. That being said, I guess I’m not a TDCC purist like George (owner of this site) who says “Two Door Cinema Clubs album is a fucking joke – the mixes were so much better on the EP.” To be honest, I see no major difference between the old version of Undercover Martyn (the leading single from this record) and the new version apart from better sound quality. Just knowing the Kitsuné released this album already says a lot about this.

The album starts off with Cigarettes in the Theatre, which starts off similarly to Price of Gas by Bloc Party (coincidentally a favourite of mine, released on one of the best debut albums of all time). This song (and this entire album) is just an explosion of positivity. Everything about this is just incredible, is reaches a brilliant climax at the end of each verse and just picks itself up after it’s done so effortlessly, brilliant. Come Back Home is next and is pretty good. I’m actually in love with the chorus. Do You Want It All? is next, again brilliant. It starts off slow but kicks itself in the arse and there’s a definite uplift in the second half, which is awesome. This Is The Life is similarly amazing. Something Good Can Work is just such a summer song, I want this rain to stop just so I can mong out and really appreciate this.

I Can Talk just explodes into action straight from the beginning, another song with a chorus that I’m in love with. Undercover Martyn is brilliant, this deserves to top the charts, it’s poppy enough to be in the charts and just sooooooooo awesome. What You Know is again, brilliant. If I had to choose a favourite song from this album, Eat That Up, It’s Not Good For You would be it. The lyrics may not be the cheeriest lyrics ever, but this song just sounds so … happy. I can’t describe how much I love this song. You’re Not Stubborn is sadly the album closer. The band decided to leave on a high note rather than slowing things down, which perfectly fits into the theme of the record. Just another brilliant song.

Two Door Cinema Club – Eat That Up, It’s Good For You

Unfortunately, like Vampire Weekend’s album, this is just way too short, 10 tracks – with the longest being 3:51 long. The album is just over 33 minutes long, which makes me a very sad boy.

Keepaway- Baby Style EP

Meh. Pitchfork gave their track Yellow Wings a 9/10 which I don’t agree with. These guys sounds WAY too similar to Animal Collective (who I’m not too big a fan of anyway) and just aren’t my thing. You can listen to Yellow Wings on their myspace.

I’ll give it to them though, this is pretty funky. The similarity of voices between the singer from here and the singer from Animal Collective REALLY puts me off though. Yellow Wings is alright, Family of the Son is better, I Think About You All The Time is better than that, 5 Rings is worse and the last track, Evil Lady, is even worse than that.

It’s alright I guess.

Keepaway – I Think About You All The Time

Took my time to finally review this one as it’s been out for a while, but I’m in love with this. Their last album, Liberation Transmission, was terrible, but they’ve taken 3 years to return and they’ve improved vastly, this album is definitely on par with The Fake Sound of Progress and Start Something. I’ll be reviewing the Japanese edition which has a few more tracks on it.

The album starts off with If It Wasn’t for Hate We’d Be Dead By Now, a short 2-minute burst which sets us up for the rest of this record, the heavy drumming throughout the song calms down a bit at the end of this song to flow straight into Dstryr / Dstryr (that is horrible to type out btw) which is one of the stand out tracks on the album, it’s seriously brilliant, just a slurry of drums and heavy guitar, the riff is beautiful and the chorus in anthemic. This is followed up by It’s Not The End Of The World But I Can See It From Here (these songs titles don’t really improve tbh …), the first single released from this album. A fairly solid song, not breathtaking and nothing special, but it’s definitely not bad. This goes into Where We Belong, the second single from the album. This song was written to be played in a stadium, got the very singable chorus and it just sounds good.  Next is Next Stop Atro City which is another one of the stand out tracks from this album. Like Destroyer (I refuse to type it out likes it’s meant to be, you know what I mean) this is a heavier song. This wouldn’t sound out of place next to Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja off of their first album, brilliant chorus and just a really good song.

Next is the lowest point on the album, For He’s a Jolly Good Felon. Coming equipped with it’s Fall Out Boy-esque song title, the first line just grates me and there are some awful lyrics on this. Looking past that, this song does have a decent chorus (I guess that’s a recurring theme on most lostprophets songs though) but I’m not overly impressed.  The song kind of stops with a minute and a half left to go into some weird beat to set us up for the next song (I’m not complaining though, at least it got rid of the last song). Following is AC Ricochet, which is a pretty good track. Nothing more than that though. Following that is A Better Nothing, a really good song, another stadium rocker.

The album starts to mellow down now.  Streets of Nowhere is more upbeat than other songs, it’s quite poppy and doesn’t come without a few “La La La’s” in the song. I can see a few people not liking this, but I don’t think it’s too bad. Dirty Little Heart is a slow, “emotional,” song. It’s alright, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the next single. Sunshine is alright, heard better though. Darkest Blue is a surprising twist after the combo of average we’ve had before this. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the next single either. The final song on this album is The Light That Burns Twice As Bright … it’s alright. It works as an album closer, but they’ve done better.

Still, brilliant album overall. I’ll be listening to this for a while.

Lostprophets – Dstryr / Dstryr

If you haven’t heard of Ash’s A-Z Series, basically what they’ve done is released a single every 2 weeks, eventually they’ll have released 26 (one for each letter of the alphabet … clever) songs, at the moment they’re at the letter H. Ichiban was G, it was released at the beginning of January and it’s a brilliant song. I’ve had it for a while but it’s only just come to my attention so I decided to upload it, enjoy! Also, Neon – the letter I – is due for release tomorrow.

Ash – Ichiban

The highly anticipated ‘09/17 2007 ‘ – EP by none other than Danger, is an exhilarating voyage through the mind of Franck Rivoire. Originating from Lyon, his music features a heavy dosage of electro-pop synths usually over some dark and heavy drum beat. Those of you who have heard some of Danger’s previous work will have probably realised that the electronic artist, who is signed to the label Ekler’o’shock, gathers the majority of his inspiration from video games and 80’s movie soundtracks.

Rivoire’s attention to detail in what seems like a short surge of chaos is nothing short of incredible. Despite the fact that some might just consider it a load of synths smashed together, you’ve really got to take a closer look to realise what it’s all about. From the euphoric rising of bedlam in 4h30, to the beguiling intro’ in 3h11 it finishes off with the dark and urban-jungle like atmosphere in 3h16. Some of you might not really consider three tracks to be much of a reason to kick up a fuss, but I honestly think that anything this guy releases is worth getting. The tracklist and a few links are below:

1. 4h30
2. 3h11
3. 3h16
4. 4h30 (Riot Kid Remix)
5. 4h30 (Oliver $ Remix)

Danger – 4h30 | MF

Danger – 4h30 (Oliver $ Remix) | MF

09/17 2007 is available to buy now on Vinyl and will be released for Download on February 1st 2010 – Amazon UK & Juno Records.

Delphic played at Reading festival this year, I saw them on the lineup and had no idea who they were, I thought they were pretty highly placed (2nd on NME stage) for a band I didn’t know … turns out they didn’t even have an album out by then, as opposed to Manchester Orchestra who played the same slot the day before yet have 3 albums out. I didn’t see them (was watching Fightstar, BIG MISTAKE) but I wish I had. Acolyte’s already been stupidly successful, they’ve gone to no.8 in the UK album charts with little advertisement and I haven’t seen a single negative review about it.

The album starts with Clarion Call. This song starts off slowly but you can feel it wanting let itself go a few seconds after it starts, and when it goes, it really goes. It’s a short song but it packs a lot of punch and it’s a brilliant album opener. Following is Doubt, their previous single which surprisingly didn’t do too well in the charts considering how good it is. After that, we have This Momentary, the single released previous to Doubt which somehow didn’t even break into the top 100. Like the album opener, it starts off slowly but you know that when it drops it’s gonna be a good one – this song reminds me off Born Slippy by Underworld, which is a very good thing. Red Lights follows, another brilliant (albeit a bit too long) song which has been stuck in my head for a while and just won’t get out. The title track Acolyte is next, and it’s this track which makes me realize why the band consider themselves an ‘alternative dance’ group instead of a rock group, it’s a brilliant 9-minute long instrumental piece, the best song on the album and one of the best songs I’ll hear all year! The next song is Halcyon, their next single (and deservedly so, definetely the most single-worthy song on the album) which will be released in March. It’s sickeningly good. So far the album is pretty much a perfect 10/10, there’s literally nothing wrong with it.

After that we’ve got Submission, another epic track. It’s probably the most far out song on the album, this is their anthem, they could play this in a stadium and it would just be brilliant. Next is Counterpoint, their first ever single which again I’m surprised didn’t make the charts. Ephemera is next, unfortunately it’s just an interlude blending into the final song on the album, Remain. Remain is the slowest track on the album, and it’s a brilliant closer.

Delphic give me hope in the British music scene, we had some brilliant bands coming out last year, such as Friendly Fires, but if Delphic carry on producing music like this, then I think we’ve got ourselves an absolutely MASSIVE band in the future, I really hope I can see them some time soon.  This album’s overtaken Contra as the best album of the decade, and it really does deserve it.

Delphic – Acolyte (single)
Delphic – Acolyte (album) – seriously buy this, just do it.

Now, from a band that gives me hope to a band that makes me want to hurt myself. Hadouken!’s first album was average at best, this one is just terrible. The only reason this has a 3/10 is because Noisia produced it and the beats are pretty good. The only songs worth bothering about (well, the ones I can remember) are Turns The Lights Out – only because it’s the single and NME shove the music video down my throat constantly – and Ugly because the lyrics are laughably bad. Seriously, he spends the entire 4 minutes saying “I’M GONNA FUCK YOUR FACE UP” and “it’s ugly like your sister” which, laughably bad. Normally I don’t even care about lyrics, but these guys take the piss.

James from Hadouken! had an interview with Popjustice a few years back where he says, “My main aim for Hadouken! is that when I look at photos in five years’ time I cringe horribly and say I was only doing it because I was young.” It’s been 3 years since their first album, so let’s just hope they don’t release a 3rd album in the next 2 years, and that the singer grows the fuck up and never does shit like this again.

I’ve had big hopes for Chew Lips since Kitsuné first dropped their Solo EP and I’ve had to wait for a while for this album. Every single I’d heard since then had been brilliant (Slick & Play Together) but this album, sadly, suffered from La Roux syndrome, in that the quality of it is largely based around the singles. It’s not a terrible album but I listen to this and lose attention too quickly. Very disappointed not to see Solo on the album, actually that being there’s quite a few demos which should’ve made it (Salt Air!!).

The album starts off with Eight which is alright, bit slow but I love her voice in this so it doesn’t get a thumbs down. That goes into Play Together which I’ve already said is quite a choon, and then this goes into Slick which I’ve also said is quite a choon.  Karen is up next, in all fairness it does sound as good as the last two songs (maybe even better, especially the chorus which is brilliant). I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘Karen’ being referred to in the song title is Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and these two singers sound stupidly similar. These three songs are probably the best on the album and they come pretty early on, I’d have preferred them somewhere in the middle as I struggle to get to the end without switching off and listening to something else.

The next song is Too Much Talking which, like the album opener, isn’t a bad song but is only saved by the fact that Tigs’ voice just sounds so brilliant. I don’t think slower songs suit the band too much (although Golden Key, the penultimate song from this record is quite good) so I will be overly critical of these (hence why I don’t rate this or Eight very much). Toro is next, again all I can say is that it’s a good song, I preferred the demo (I think the album version is a bit over-produced whilst the demo just sounded right) but it’s not bad. Seven is next, I don’t mean to sound like a record on repeat but again, it’s just good. Good chorus, rest is dull. In fact, Two Hands & Golden Key can pretty much be summarized in the same way (although Golden Key is just a little bit better). The last song, suitably named Piano Song, is just dull, pretty bad album closer.

The album’s a bit short, the stand out tracks happen too early on and they’ve all been released as singles anyway. I had high hopes for this, they weren’t met unfortunately.

Chew Lips – Karen

30th of August 2009, the day I fell in love with Vampire Weekend.

Their first album, Vampire Weekend, was immense, simple as that. Nearly every song could have been released as a single, it was fresh, it was new and it was fun. I didn’t like it too much to start with, but seeing them at Reading Festival changed my mind, they were absolutely brilliant live and that performance made me fall in love with their album, it also got me so psyched up for their next album that when I heard it had leaked, a little bit of wee came out. Contra isn’t as quirky as their previous release, it’s almost as if they’ve lost some of their charm with this album, but that doesn’t mean it any worse. This album is a lot more solid, most people interested will have heard Horchata (click for free download of track) and Cousins … whilst Cousins wouldn’t seem out of place on the first album, Horchata would be, and seeing as it’s the album opener, its almost a message from the band that you should expect something different from this (not that that’s a bad thing!).

The album opens with Horchata and moves into White Sky, a pretty safe opening pair (definitely a slower start that the first album) and then goes into Holiday, the first “classic” sounding VW song on the album, it’s a little fun song which I’m in love with. The fourth track is California English, another fun song (if you haven’t realized by now, I’m pretty much going to call all VW songs ‘fun’) which oddly uses autotune, I’m not slating it like the rest of the internet has seem to done, I quite like it, it just sounds out of place. They then bring the tempo back down with Taxi Cab, probably the only song I don’t love off of this album. This is followed by Run, another brilliant song which I can’t slate at all, it’s not perfect but nothing is.

The first 6 tracks of the album build up to this combo of 4 songs, starting from Cousins and ending at I Think Ur A Contra that really separates this album from the last. I enjoyed every song from their first, but they can’t compete with how good these 4 songs are. You’ve all heard Cousins, you know how good it is, I don’t even need to bother explaining myself. Giving Up The Gun is the bands best song, period. It’s anthemic and I can’t wait to see them perform this live. Diplomat’s Son samples M.I.A’s Hussel and again is just such a strong track, this is the song that’ll be stuck in my head for months on end. The album ends on I Think Ur A Contra, not the most exciting track, but that doesn’t matter, it ends the album off beautifully and leaves me wanting so much more.

My main criticism of this album is that it’s so short, just like their last album, 10 tracks just isn’t enough (especially when only 1 song is over 4 minutes long!). Regardless of that, well played VW, my album of the year so far, better yet, my album of the decade!

Vampire Weekend – Cousinz (Toy Selectah Mex-More Remix)

Long time no see! Been busy with uni which is why I haven’t posted in a good 3 months, so don’t expect me to again when I go back in a couple of weeks haha. Whilst there I barely downloaded any music and that which I did was mainly all trance, but as its the holidays and I’ve been proper bored I’ve started diversifying again. Wasn’t sure what to start with though so thought I’d go with an albeit late review of Kid Sis’ debut album Ultraviolet.

Now, I pretty much completely lost track of the music world over the past 3 months so I completely forgot about her long-awaited release. It came out at the end of November and when I remembered about it I thought I’d check out Pitchfork’s review. They basically slated it so I didn’t expect much, but was pleasantly surprised. I’d already heard some of it, namely the Swedish House Mafia-produced ‘Right Hand Hi‘, which is still excellent, ‘Get Fresh’, which I think is a bit meh, and of course ‘Pro Nails’ w/ Kanye, again an ace track.

Looking at the list of producers, you’d expect it to be a very good but somewhat genre-defying record. Which to be honest, I basically agree with. Producers include the aforementioned Swedish House Mafia, UK dubstepper Rusko, UK part-dubsteppers Herve & Sinden (with whom she collaborated on ‘Beeper’), Spank Rock’s XXXChange, Ed Banger’s Yuksek, and her boyfriend A-Trak supervised it all. Guests also include Estelle, Gant-Man and Cee-Lo. Some pretty big/diverse names.

Overall, the album has an expected light-hearted/party feeling to it, with nice synths and casual rapping/singing combos from Kid Sis. I wouldn’t describe Kid Sis as a good rapper, but I am a fan of her mixing rapping with singing, similarly to Plan B, Example and so on. I do actually prefer her singing, which I first realised in ‘Right Hand Hi’, one of the album’s best tracks. For me though the best is definitely the (I’m fairly sure) Rusko-produced, Cee-Lo-guested ‘Daydreaming’. Lovely synths mixed in with tasty dubstep production, with Kid Sis and Cee-Lo singing on top of that. Doesn’t sound like those factors would mix well but to me at least, they really do.

My other favourite would be her first ever single from way back in 2007, ‘Control’ – a great electronic/hip-hop hybrid, the very soft ‘Life On Tv’, and of course ‘Pro Nails’. Other highlights include Yazoo-sampling/dubstep-like ‘Big N Bad’ and ‘Step’, which features Estelle.

On the whole it’s in no way a serious hip-hop record, nor is it ground-breaking, but it is fun and a nice listen. Highly enjoyable!

Kid Sister – Daydreaming (feat. Cee-Lo) Buy Album on Play

On a side note, here’s Doorly’s latest dubstep remix, of Wiley & Chew Fu’s ‘Take That’. Not bad..

Wiley & Chew Fu – Take That (Doorly’s Dubstep Remix)