Friday 23 May 2008

Minilogue & Loco Dice


CLUBLAND MAY


The Swedish production team of Minilogue have barely put a foot wrong over the last few years. Originally starting out as Son Kite, producing progressive house and trance, they quickly branched out into more techno and house-centric material, finally abandoning their Son Kite project in 2004 in favour of their Minilogue moniker. Most of the releases have always held some element of this beginning but with ever more stylistic touches they have been refining their art, stripping back the clutter whilst enhancing the overall effect. With their debut album Animals recently released it looks like they have reached the zenith of this process. The album is in two parts; a dance oriented chapter and an ambient one, but let’s just look at the floor fare for now.

Sunday 4 May 2008

Portishead



PORTISHEAD

Back from the hinterland of an eleven year hiatus, Portishead gear up to release the aptly titled Third album; just don’t call it trip hop.

The nineties nostalgia capsule may be filled with rollerblades, Vanilla Ice and more about Jennifer Aniston’s hair than anybody ever wanted to know, but it also gave us musical sustenance (and pigeon-holing terminology) with grunge, drum & bass, brit-pop, and trip hop. The latter was one of those sleight of hand moments in music journalism that sought to define a style of emerging music but generally looked upon by the artists unfavourably.

The Littl'ans




NO MORE HIDING FROM SATURDAY NIGHT


London four-piece, the Littl’ans saw their indie rock star rise with an instant hit aided by the effortlessly shambolic Pete Doherty. Now after crashing back to earth they’ve picked up the pieces and once more set the controls for the heart of the sun.

Mark 'The Cobrasnake' Hunter



CAMERAS READY, PREPARE TO FLASH!


It’s there, for your immediate friends - no, the world to see. Your eyes fluttering even in the frozen still-motion of a captured image; drink hanging lazily by your side like a faithful puppy and cigarette pasted to the corner of your mouth but perilously close to succumbing to gravity’s inevitable conclusion. It’s not necessarily how you remember (?) your night but thanks to some scurrilous camera jockey and their photo blog it’s how it will go down in history. Elsewhere on the page everyone else perfectly epitomizes your imagined hipness.