Katie Stelmanis has a haunting voice which she deploys to powerful effect as the vocalist for Toronto-based band Austra. Their full length debut via Domino features darkly hued electronica with 80s-era synthetic timbres and danceable beats.
There are plenty of bands that have tried to mine this territory of late. But the combination of memorable hooks, and Stelmanis’ pipes singing them, allows Austra to stand out from the back.
If you think that Eighties nostalgia has lasted longer than the era itself, you’re probably right. But the best exponents of dark wave, bands like Austra, use the materials made famous by 80′s era pop songs as a touchstone and a jumping off point, not merely for the sentimental thrill (now chilled). As such, Feel it Break allows the listener a refreshed take on synth-pop, which is welcome news indeed.
Here are a couple of live videos of the band performing at SXSW 2011.
“The album’s called Mixed Race because being mixed race is the single biggest influence on my music. You sat down at the table in my house and you saw every colour. It’s made me much more open-minded than I could’ve been. I come from both worlds.”
-Tricky on Mixed Race
Tricky spent several years of the oughts on hiatus from recording, but in the past three years he’s returned with 2008′s Knowle West Boy and now Mixed Race. His current aesthetic is more stylistically diverse than the darkly hued electronica of his 90s work. But Tricky’s still not planning to let his music live on the sunny side of the street anytime soon.
On Mixed Race, there’s a plethora of reference points, from Middle Eastern music, supplied by lutenist-singer Hakim Hamadouche, on “Hakim” to Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn Theme” mixed with dancehall on Echo Minott’s 1993 hit “Murder Weapon.” “UK Jamaican” incorporates robo-house synths and beats. As always a number of artists make guest appearance: Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, Jamaican vocalist Terry Lynn, and UK singer Blackman. He even gets some help from a family member: his brother Marlon Thaws.
Perhaps the album’s signature collaboration is with a relative newcomer: the Irish-Italian singer Frankie Riley, whose supple voice graces several cuts on the album. ”Ghetto Stars” pits Riley’s soaring vocal and cinematic string samples against dystopian raspy-voiced sprechstimme and trip hop beats. It serves as a bracing antidote to any and all hip hop odes to the gangster lifestyle, presenting an unvarnished look at urban criminality.
If Tricky hasn’t entirely found a way to make a break with the bleak world view that is central to much of his most compelling work, he’s certainly added new hues to broaden this prevailingly dark palette. That, and fruitful engagement with new musical collaborators, makes Mixed Race an engaging listen.
26 years after their last full length release of new material, Orange Juice’s compendious career-surveying boxed set Coals to Newcastle is out on 11-22-2010. Orange Juice was Scotland’s answer to post-punk, and their music was a touchstone both for fellow Glaswegian pop artists and for the burgeoning American indie pop scene of the 1980s.
It’ll certainly be on many a neo-pop fan’s Christmas list. But why wait? Thanks to the kind folks at Domino, you can stream five songs from the forthcoming release below!
On Hidden, their sophomore release, These New Puritans incorporate orchestral instruments alongside synthesizers and driving post-punk rhythms to create an unusually hybridized sound palette. But adding choir, woodwinds, and brass to the mix has done nothing to dilute the urgency of TNP’s songs. They don’t incorporate them in a suave, neoclassical fashion. Indeed, Jack Barnett’s classical chops were honed in a month-long crash course in notation. Instead they appear in angular block-like formations, glaciers a-swirl in a maelstrom sea of pop signatures. Sounds affects – including a sample of knives being sharpened – are also liberally incorporated, as are out-of-the-box dance-hall beats and synthetic loops.
But the severity of these incorporations suits Hidden, an album more about stark juxtapositions rather than finely nuanced transitions. It also manages to blunt any notion that the use of classical forces or filmic effects on a rock record necessitates sonic domestication. Quite the contrary, this is a woolly and wild, yet eminently gratifying, recording.
Making the classical aspects of the burgeoning indie classical movement abundantly clear, crossover albums are now crossover marketing musical scores. Via his website, composer Owen Pallett has released a limited edition score for the music on Heartland, his latest Domino recording.
Owen Pallett's Heartland
Joined by the Czech Symphony Orchestra and a host of guests (including composer Nico Muhly) Pallette has crafted his most consistently engaging music to date. In some critical circles, indie classical has, rightly or wrongly, been under the microscope for making pop into a ‘longhair’ genre, robbing it of its immediacy in favor of overt sophistication. I’d submit that this vantage point doesn’t give enough credit to indie audiences, who seem to be just fine grappling with orchestral arrangements by Pallett and electronic experiments by Animal Collective alike.
What’s more, recordings like Heartland amply demonstrate that one can, if they’re talented, craft sophisticated music that has just as many catchy hooks as a three-chord, three-minute anthemic single. A case in point is the loop-laden and jaunty “Lewis Takes off his Shirt;” the music, and the video below, suggest that pop can indeed combine sophistication with immediacy, and that its orchestral incarnation can be downright cheeky!
For those of your with a case of ‘artifact avarice,’ the full orchestra score for Heartland is $46 and has been printed in a limited run of 300. In addition to the music it also provides lyrics and a chart of diagrams of patches for the ARP 2600.
Owen Palett’s touring a bunch in support of Heartland. Here are some dates:
04-08 Toronto, Ontario – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
04-10 Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
04-11 Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theater
04-12 Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall
04-13 Columbus, OH – Wexner Center
04-14 Pittsburgh, PA – Andy Warhol Museum
04-15 Washington DC – Black Cat
04-18 Indio, CA – Coachella Festival
04-20 Boston, MA – Institute of Contemporary Art
04-22 New York, NY – Webster Hall
04-24 Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery
04-25 Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church
04-27 Atlanta, GA – The Earl
04-29 Dallas, TX – Granada Theater
04-30 Austin, TX – The Mohawk
05-05 San Francisco, CA – The Independent
05-08 Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
05-09 Vancouver, British Columbia – The Vogue Theatre
05-10 Victoria, British Columbia – Alix Goolden Hall
05-11 Portland, OR – Aladdin Theater
05-13 Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
05-14 Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
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