The OOZ is Archy Marshall’s, AKA King Krule’s, third album which recently has been put out on the True Panther Sounds label. On The OOZ King Krule again finds a nice balance between the elements of punk, jazz, darkwave and trip hop. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Trip Hop
Warpaint – Warpaint
As far as I recall 2010 brought me quite a lot of ‘hipster approved’ music. And to be honest, bands such as Local Natives, Caribou, Balthazar, Sleigh Bells, Suuns and Warpaint showed a lot of promise back then. The press however was most jubilant about the all-female art-rock outfit, Warpaint, coming from Los Angeles. Surely the involvement of former Red Hot Chilli Peppers guitarist John Frusciante had something to do with that. Initially he successfully helped Theresa Wayman (vocals and guitar) et al to create a trendy, but also out of the box, post-punk sound. Warpaint’s first full length album, The Fool, was therefore deemed to become a self fulfilling prophecy of success. The Fool confirmed this status and stormed the 2010 indie charts and also received some favourable reviews for being swamped with moody chords and haunting vocals. However, where do we go from here? Extending a successful phase by simply releasing a new record isn’t an easy task. For their colleagues Sleigh Bells and Suuns the follow up proved to be a troublesome struggle. Indeed this doesn’t automatically mean another, more negative, self fulfilling prophecy for Warpaint is opening up. So lets give the eponymous second album a spin and hear if they’re able to enchant listeners once again.
Goldfrapp – Tales of Us (2013)
On several occasions Goldfrapp left fans of old empty handed. For those of you who don’t know, Goldfrapp once was famed for their darkish, icy and cinematic breakthrough album, Felt Mountain that was released more than a decade ago. A few years after this success Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory decided to radically change their focus to glam electronics and combined this with a ‘Lady Gagaish’ look and feel on stage. Personally I was startled by the contents of the successor Black Cherry (2003) but also secretly accepted this album to be my guilty pleasure of the year. That year I also noticed that I wasn’t alone in this. Black Cherry was sold in very large numbers and picked up by Coca-Cola, Nintendo and Armani who used Goldfrapp’s tunes for commercial purposes. Obviously this popularity led to a follow up album in 2005. Supernature was meant to be an extension of the previous success and flourished on many hot and sweaty dance floors around the world. Next up was Seventh Tree (2008), an album that slightly reassured me because its rationale was of a more delicate and tranquil nature. Did this foreshadow a return to the early years of Goldfrapp? Alas it didn’t, for on their fifth album was neglectable. On Head First (2010) Goldfrapp reverted themselves to catchy dance music. When you try and sum this up in one sentence one can only conclude that Goldfrapp’s discography is not one you need to aline chronologically. This summer he latest scion from the duo was released on Mute Records and to be honest, I don’t know what to expect anymore. Yet after more than a decade, my devotion to Felt Mountain is still strongly present so I’m willing to give it another shot. Continue reading
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