Pages tagged “domino”

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Battles Announce First New Album in Four Years

The past several years have been a turbulent period for experimental rockers Battles. While in the studio recording their follow-up to their 2007 debut LP Mirrored, guitarist/vocalist Tyondai Braxton quit the band to pursue his own solo endeavors, leaving the supergroup without one of its integral members....  read more

Chief: Modern Rituals

All together now Los Angeles four-piece Chief borrows the soaring, idyllic four-part harmonies beloved of West Coast musicians since the time of the Beach Boys (and dusted off in the Aughts with Seattle’s Fleet Foxes, among others). The members of Chief have great pipes and each song on their debut LP Modern Rituals is centered on a soaring explosion of vocal euphony that could melt the heart of even the most jaded music fan. It’s the thing that makes their personalities (and their music) interesting—when they aren’t united, the musicianship is standard guitar/drums/bass twang, and the lyrics are the...  read more

Villagers: Becoming a Jackal

Debut record breaks the skin Conor J. O’Brien’s debut produces the same effect as a cut from an extremely sharp knife. You don’t feel anything until you look down and realize you’re bleeding. On first listen, the songs seem innocuous enough—sweet acoustic folk embellished by a judicious use of strings, bells, piano and the occasional howl. But as it sinks in, O’Brien’s vivid imagery drips into your mind and produces a strong, lingering sensation....  read more

These New Puritans: Hidden

British foursome gets wonderfully bizarre on second album You’ve heard music like this before, just not all in the same place. Hidden somehow synthesizes the concussive guitars and delirious chants of Liars, the cinematic industrial churn of Nine Inch Nails, brainy Reichian pattern music, Timbaland’s spacey snap, and the moody winds and horns of composer Benjamin Britten. The disparate elements—cheap dance presets and six-foot Japanese drums, intricate Foley sound effects (the sort used in radio dramas), blitzkrieg guitars and springy synths, choral arrangements and angelic pianos—all interlock seamlessly....  read more

Lightspeed Champion: Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You

See me after class Devonté Hynes’ sophomore album as Lightspeed Champion offers a smattering of well-shellacked chamber-pop tunes and little else. The requisite balance between guitar jangle (“There’s Nothing Underwater”) and melodramatic piano balladry (“Romart”) means Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You will serve as a tolerable soundtrack to at least two months’ worth of New England sorority parties....  read more

Four Tet: There Is Love in You

Electronic auteur revisits his past, digs deeper into hypnotic dance grooves While he’s hardly been inactive during the five years since the last Four Tet LP (releasing a set of remixes, a Fridge album and no less than four collaborations with avant-garde jazz drummer Steve Reid), Kieran Hebden has lost some momentum since he revolutionized electronic music with his use of folk instruments on 2003’s Rounds. That he hasn’t really tied up the loose ends of that experiment into some definitive statement is both a small disappointment and a large testament to his creative restlessness....  read more

Final Fantasy: Heartland

A year in the making, Owen Pallett emerges with a rock opera You couldn’t invent a musical project with a bigger dweeb pedigree than one whose previous work includes albums based on the “eight schools of magic codified by Dungeons & Dragons,” or a new work “concerning a young ultra-violent farmer named Lewis and a supreme deity named Owen.” And yet, that’s just what Toronto composer and Polaris Music Prize-winner Owen Pallett—the man behind solo string project Final Fantasy (its name a nod to the popular video game series)—does on Heartland....  read more

Download Final Fantasy's "Lewis Takes Action"

Download Final Fantasy's "Lewis Takes Action" here.Final Fantasy's Heartland comes out Jan. 12 on Domino....  read more

Lightspeed Champion Reacquaints Himself with New Album

Although he’s only in his 20s, Lightspeed Champion’s Dev Hynes has had to reintroduce himself several times. Once a guitarist for unfortunately-named-and-now-defunct rock band, Test Icicles, the singer/songwriter reemerged in 2008 with the country-inspired Falling Off the Lavender Bridge. And now, after dabbling into classical compositions and musical theatre, he is ready to do it all over again....  read more

Arctic Monkeys: Humbug

John Lennon. Pete Townshend. Ray Davies. Paul Weller...  read more