Nlf3[trio]
“Part One/Part Two”
(Prohibited/Chronowax)
The consummate ease with which prog-rock and guitar oriented experimental music was forgotten is no coincidence. It was rubbish. But with samplers and computers, the conceptual guitar album is now a more respectable form. And that is what this trio is all about. Created by the co-founders of French stable Prohibited Records, who represent acts like Heliogabale and Herman Düne, their double LP is the product of a few off-the-cuff jam sessions in late 1999. Their spontaneous approach to instrumental composition incorporates a G3, guitar pedal-samplers, and real-time loops for a warm, genuinely organic sound. Style-wise, it’s a dynamic hybrid between jazzed-up ’70s afrobeat and the erstwhile sounds of experimental rock. The songs aren’t over-indulgent 11-minute epics though — more like two- or three-minute bites of vivid, cinematic soundtrack type tunes that were originally intended for avant-garde movies at Chaillot. Like the album title, the tracks are assigned a number as opposed to a name... Make up your own track-listing and even rearrange the music, if that’s your bag. Out now
The Cinematic Orchestra
“Remixes 1998-2000”
(Ninja Tune/Pias)
Taking other people’s music and rearranging it to appeal to one’s own ilk is fast becoming an industry of its own. Sometimes tucked away on the b-side, more often featured on commercial radio play lists, the remix can make or break a record. Take artists like Jamiroquai or U2. But The Cinematic Orchestra’s Jason Swinscoe isn’t interested in airplay or chart positions. He prefers the challenge of taking a track from someone like breakbeat don DJ Krust and transforming his savage beats into smooth, bottom-end bass lines and delicate piano riffs. His reworking of Kenji Eno’s “Fear Theme,” commissioned for a Dreamcast video game, is one remix among many modern classics. Out now
The Twilight Singers
“Twilight As Played By…”
(Columbia)
Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli conceived this side project shortly after the Cincinnati band parted company with seminal label Sub Pop, in 1997. Following the release of their “1965” LP, Dulli found himself with an album’s worth of lyrics and music he didn’t consider suitable for the Whigs. So he moved to New Orleans and with friends Shawn Smith and Harold Chichester, recorded an album of refined, intensely compassionate rhythm and blues. After sitting on the songs for two years, he decided to enlist the help of English remix duo Fila Brazillia, who asserted their electronic oriented production skills with subtlety and panache. The slow-burning instrumental “Verti-Marte” and the tastefully arranged orchestration on “Last Temptation,” blend US romance with UK style on what is surely one of the most intriguing, deftly composed albums to come out of New Orleans since… well, a long time. Out now
SoleSides
“Greatest Bumps”
(Quannum/Ninja Tune)
Crate-diggers and sound-scratchers will already know the entire back catalog of SoleSide’s 12s and 45s. But for the non-vinyl-addicted, the Quannum consortium and Ninja Tune present “SoleSides Greatest Bumps,” the definitive singles collection from the north Californian beats-mad SoleSides crew. The album features riddims and rhymin’ from the earliest annals of DJ Shadow’s career plus previously unreleased gems from Lyrics Born, Gift of Gab and Blackalicious. If raw, blunt, freestyle hip hop is your joint and you think you have a chronic record-collecting obsession, then SoleSides is the way to go. Out now. Reunion Tour concert at Divan du Monde, Dec 5 (see Paris Choice)
4[four] 4[for] 2000[Y2K]
Four of the year’s musical highlights that we either missed, skipped or flipped.
Photek
“Solaris”
(Science/Source)
A sublime recording from Rupert Parkes and a neat progression from his previously strict drum’n’bass repertoire. Featuring vocalist Robert Owens, ‘Mine To Give” was one of the best house singles of the year. “Can’t Come Down” and “Infinity” were two of the best d’n’b singles of the year. An essential album.
Badly Drawn Boy
“The Hour of Bewilderbeast”
(XL/Delabel)
Manchester’s Damon Gough deservedly beat off competition from Coldplay and Leftfield to claim this year’s Mercury Music Prize. His delectable opus of melodic ditties are sensitive, thoughtful observations of the ups and downs, the light and dark sides of our lives, played in a plaintive, almost Lennonesque manner.
Laurent Garnier
“Unreasonable Behaviour”
(F Com)
The godfather of French techno made his comeback with an album cut with dark breaks, deep beats and sinister sounding noises. Tracks like “City Sphere” invoke apocalyptic visions of bleeping, burping, deserted streets where menace lurks around every corner. It’s a stirring, crackling saga — a kind of last-one-to-leave, switch-off-the-lights end to the second millennium’s dance music boom years.
D'Angelo
“Voodoo”
(Virgin)
The “black Elvis of soul” is renowned for constantly reinventing himself through his music. With “Voodoo” the Virginian born singer produced a multifaceted collection of sonic wonderment, with hip hop, R&B, funk, rock and soul all tied up in a seamless, ritualistic sounding package. Complex and versatile grooves performed with strutt’n’stagger attitude. This is how we like it.
