Interview - Volker Bertellman, Hauschka
On last year’s Salons Des Amateurs, German prepared piano experimentalist Volker Bertelmann – better known as Hauschka – took modern classical music by the scruff of the neck, dragging it out of fusty macchiato-sipping territory and onto the dancefloor. A searing snapshot of his current fascination with club culture, Salons’ scattershot energy, agitated rhythms, Day-Glo melodies and gutter-punching melancholy – imagine John Cage, Thomas Brinkmann and Battles’ Ian Williams jostling over the DJ booth in a murky Berlin sweatbox at 3am and you’re pretty much there – cemented his position as one of the most confounding and compelling classical talents operating today.
Best Coast - The Only Place
Bethany Cosentino’s punk update of The Shangri-Las’ sun-splashed pop on Best Coast’s 2010 debut propelled her to indie pin-up status – a sort of riot grrl next door. This new effort ditches the distortion in favour of cleaner textures and, in doing so, loses a little of the bratty, snarly character that lit up Crazy For You.
Inside the mind of Jai Paul, the British electronic scene’s most elusive producer
There’s elusive, and then there’s London producer Jai Paul. The throbbing bass notes of his 2007 demo BTSU have been shaking the foundations of clubs for almost five years now, earning the attention of Drake and Beyonce, who have both mined the track for sample on recent tracks. However, the Londoner has so far declined to capitalise on the slow-burning success of that track, failing to release another note of music since - that is, until now.
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Since the release of their debut two years ago, Japandroids have begun creeping into mainstream view, even though on the spectrum of noisy garage-rock duos they lay closer to lo-fi experimenters No Age and fellow Canadians Death From Above 1979 than the chart-dwelling White Stripes. Their second album, Celebration Rock, delivers more of the same: good time guitar-pop anthems about girls and nights on the tiles, delivered at breakneck velocity and near-deafening volume.
North Atlantic Oscillation - Fog Electric
North Atlantic Oscillation’s 2010 debut Grappling Hooks elicited comparison to everyone from Pink Floyd to Granddaddy to Squarepusher – a list of acts dissimilar enough to suggest the Edinburgh duo are actually true originals. New album Fog Electric picks up where their first outing left off, carving glacier-sized soundscapes out of gentle keyboard sounds, emotive falsetto vocals and crackling electronics.
Lower Dens - Nootropics
You wouldn’t have guessed Lower Dens’ second album was written from the claustrophobic confines of a tour van. This expansive follow-up to 2010 debut Twin Hand Movement manages a tsunami-sized wash of sounds, recalling the tenebrous dream pop of Galaxie 500 and fellow Baltimore exports Beach House, despite being composed on keyboards in the back of their bus while on the road.
Interview - James Mercer, The Shins
With The Shins’ recent fourth studio album Port Of Morrow currently positioned in the upper echelons of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, frontman James Mercer has plenty of reasons to be cheerful. It’s not a bad turnaround for the group that saw their keyboard player and drummer depart in 2009, after Mercer sidelined the group to explore his electronic interests with producer Danger Mouse in side-project Broken Bells. Now the Shins is a full-time concern again, I caught up with the singer to find out why he wrote this record solo, what prompted the change in personnel and how he ended up writing parts of the album in Elliott Smith’s old house.
Welcome to Portlandia, where Sleater-Kinney meets Saturday Night Live
Portlandia is the TV sitcom taking the American indie scene by storm. Created by Carrie Brownstein – the cult hero behind punk bands Sleater-Kinney and more recently Wild Flag – with Saturday Night Live comedian Fred Armisen, the show has got the blogosphere talking thanks to guest appearances from the likes of St. Vincent, Joanna Newsom, Johnny Marr and The Shins’ James Mercer. But with the show yet to hit British shores, what exactly is it?
St. Vincent on Gossip Girl and the indie acts taking over teen TV
St. Vincent appeared in a special Valentine’s Day episode of Gossip Girl aired last night on American TV (13 February). A little digging online reveals she’s not the first of her kind to do so – in fact, there’s in fact a long history of indie acts appearing on teen soaps that includes the likes of The Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth and The Breeders. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect from Robyn and Lady Gaga, both previous guests on the popular drama, but there’s something intriguing about seeing an artist as eclectic as Annie Clark rubbing shoulders with the show’s cast of whining socialites affluent teens. How did this happen? What draws acts to these programmes? And do these cameos, as some detractors claim, cheapen the music?
Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It
It is strange to think that in the early weeks of 2012, while Lana Del Rey was cranking blogosphere buzz up to near tinnitus-inducing levels, another pouting singer of washed-out piano ballads was readying a album almost unnoticed actually deserving of that hysteria. That singer was Seattle’s Perfume Genius, who on Put Your Back N 2 It has crafted a collection of songs so arresting they seem to slow time, haunting in their emptiness and breathy anguish.
