ALBUMSREVIEWS 6.5
Cooly G Playin’ Me Hyperdub
The soul experiment
Equally adept at sweet melody as she is raw rhythmic UK funky experimentalism, London’s Cooly G is out to transcend her musical roots with this hotly anticipated debut album. Offering her singing voice a starring role throughout, ‘Playin’ Me’ posits Campbell as a space age R&B chanteuse on a set of sultry song sketches, loose vocal meditations floating in space. Mostly shedding the UK funky associations in favour of a freeform electronic sound, it’s definitely bold. But the reliance on her vocals lets it down a little. She hasn’t got the strongest pipes in the world, and the cover of Coldplay’s ‘Trouble’ doesn’t help. The best is reserved for last. ‘What Airtime’ bristles with dubbed-out percussive energy; ‘Is It Gone’ is a next level update of d&b through a house filter: effortlessly futuristic while eminently danceable. Cooly G wants to expand her horizons into pop, but her best moments are geared to the club heads.Ramona Robinson
8.0
Rewd Adams & Last Skeptik How Not To Make A Living Bread & Butter/Grindstone In rewd health
Two of UK hip-hop’s most original and imaginative players, Rewd Adams (MC) and The Last Skeptik (producer) make a dream team pairing on this collaborative debut album. Pooling their diverse influences, they prove they have impeccable taste on the Big Daddy Kane/Percee P true skool breakneck rap roughness of ‘Nukey’ to The Beatminerz vibe of ‘Turn It Up’, with its exquisite, dusty boom bap break and hazy samples. They’re far from golden age luddites, though, the Andre 3000-esque, psychedelic pop-inflected ‘Everything’s OK’ and the stoned acid rock flavour and live instrumentation of ‘Red Letters’ providing ample proof. Though wearing their inspirations on their sleeves, Rewd Adams and Last Skeptik demonstrate plenty of personality of their own, the former a dextrous wordsmith, the latter a clever sample hunter and beatmaker. File next to those Jehst, Blade and Roots Manuva
records.Ben Murphy
quIckIES
The Very Best MTMTMK Moshi Moshi 7.0
African hi-tech
‘MTMTMK’ was recorded over five weeks in Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya’s hometown Lilongwe in Malawi, and the result is an album that matches the high spirit and warm-hearted exuberance of their debut. An album fit for summer, electronics fizz alongside crisp African percussion: perfect for dancing in the sun. Tamara El Essawi
Paul van Dyk Evolution Vandit 7.0
PvD reaches for the next stage
‘Evolution’ is PvD’s admirable attempt to fuse classic dance music conventions with a broader musicality, still steeped in his past but also seeing him working with a suite of producers and vocalists in the search for his own artistic evolution. He nails it best with tracks like Arty collaboration ‘The Ocean’.Angus Paterson
Pig & Dan Decade Soma 7.5
10 at 10
This is a 10-year (and 10-track) anniversary album marking a decade of diverse dance for this always enjoyable duo. There’s a loosely tech house framework but P&D delight in cramming all kinds of ideas within this, all executed with an enviable degree of finesse and flair and retaining a tight-as groove. Tristan Parker
Moonbootica Our Disco Is Louder Than Yours Cheap Thrills 7.0
More than volume needed
8.0
SpaceGhostPurrp Mysterious Phonk: Chronicles Of SpaceGhostPurrp 4AD
GhostSpaceKilla
“The world is a house with a yard full of snakes,” Miami rapper SpaceGhostPurrp drawls with steady, dead-eyed intent on the opening track of his debut album. ‘Mysterious Phonk’ is uncomfortable at times, lyrics simmering with aggression and smoky paranoia like someone whispering a ghost story in your ear. The magic of it is how this alchemizes with the music. The ‘Phonk’ of the title is a syrupy, bristling way with rhythm, tense as the quieter moments in a horror movie soundtrack, and slinking with an inbuilt twisted funkiness best displayed on ‘No Evidence’ and ‘Bringing The Phonk’. Hip- hop is about a tension between fantasy and reality. SpaceGhostPurrp’s word is a sinister one filled with shadows and paranoia, and it’s one of the most unique and fully formed visions hip-hop has produced for a while. Tamara El Essawi
Marconi Union are officially the most relaxing band in the world. An accolade that certainly has greater kudos than “more snooze-inducing than Coldplay or Enya”, which is what a scientific study concluded after comparing Marconi Union’s ‘Weightless’ track to other pieces of ‘chill out’ music to find the most soothing composition. For their sixth album the Mancunian duo of Richard Talbot and Jamie Crossley — now augmented by pianist Duncan Meadows — step once more into the hazy space between Brian Eno at his most ethereal and Mogwai at their most melancholic, through which they floated on previous LPs like 2008’s ‘A Lost Connection’. The pellucid drones and shimmering guitars of tracks like ‘First Light’ feel like being heavily sedated in the best possible way, and without any unpleasant side effects like the urge to rip off your own ears with boredom. Unlike prolonged exposure to Coldplay, for example. Paul Clarke
066
Marconi Union Different Colours Just Music Feeling sleepy
8.0
Smiley, bouncy, dancefloor electro- house from this Hamburg duo, in the vein of Justice, Daft Punk, et al. Every track kicks off nicely and there are some solid, beefy hooks (and intriguing quirks) in there, but it ends up becoming a tad repetitive in its simplicity. Tristan Parker
CFCF Exercises Dummy Records 8.0
Low slung chords
Montreal-based key artist Mike Silver reaches a new level of deep melancholia on his debut eight-track LP. Framing heavy major chords shrouded in reverb and filtered through with soft white noise, it’s a meditative, textured and grandiose affair sharing as much common ground with the orchestral work of Phillip Glass as it does Four Tet or Floating Points. Adam Saville
Gatekeeper Exo
Hippos In Tanks 8.0
In-Exo-rable
Gatekeeper’s way with atmosphere reaches its pinnacle on ‘Exo’. The thumping techno monster of ‘Exolift’, the tense acid bounce of ‘Hydrus’ and ‘Encarta’’s manic pulsations and sampled choir are just three examples of how they have re-imagined the drama and hard- edges of early dance music to mind-melting effect. Tamara El Essawi
repeAtTHE LPS WE CAN’T LEAVE ALONE...
Sterac Secret Life Of Machines 100% Pure 10
Hugely influential Detroit-inspired LP from ‘95 revisited.
www.djmag.com
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Trouble Polydor 9.0
Big and clever album from a lad called Orlando, not a dinosaur.
Hot Chip
In Our Heads Domino 9.0
Yet more technicoloured pop from our favourite dance band, probably their best.
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