downbeat
Track: Skinshape – ‘Losing My Mind’: charting lockdown in blissful six-string shimmer
DORSET’S languid, blissful Skinshape, the musical mask of Will Dorey, released two excellent and very different albums as 2020 ground us down elsewhere: the Afropop highlife stylings of Umoja, and the more downbeat sunshine of Arrogance Is The Death Of Men, whose basking rays are now really making sense with the yellow orb finally starting …
ALBUM REVIEW: Madlib – ‘Sound Ancestors’: beats genii’s wide-eyed, wide-open odyssey
Madlib’s Sound Ancestors, produced by Four Tet, is the beats genii’s wide-eyed, wide-open odyssey. Like a fractal pattern, the deeper you focus and the more you pull out, the more you see
SEE: Post Coal Prom Queen – ‘Salt’: a cool, dystopian synthpop opener
FORMERLY the creative heart behind L-space, the electronic alt.pop outfit who released three albums from 2018 up to last year, Lily Higham and Gordon Johnstone have cleaved away into a new creative zone as Post Coal Prom Queen, although on this evidence it would seem their intent to seduce with airy siren sing and dark synthetic …
SEE: The animation for Kratos Himself’s ‘Shift’: complex beatz atmospheres
KRATOS HIMSELF is the singular musical vision of Jethro Kratos Hopmans, whose mission is to meld icy electronics, potent cinematic beats and an expansive library of sound recordings in order to take you into a place of dark breaks. He’s set to release his fifth album of the past decade, Vectors, on February 26th via …
ALBUM REVIEW: Skinshape – ‘Arrogance Is The Death Of Men’: chilled guitar odysseys
Arrogance Is The Death Of Men is such a different creature to Skinshape’s last, Umoja. It’s got that guitar thing going that Will does so wonderfully; lyrically, you can hear the catharsis of this year, the trials and tribulations. It’s a lovely record full of emotion and guitar that helps usher in the end of this year. Win.
TRACK: Skinshape – ‘Another Day’: second languid cut teases for the December album
IT’S BEEN days, mere days, since Will Dorey, the quiet, guitar-playing minor genius behind Skinshape, dropped his last single, Arrogance Is The Death Of Men – a sun-blissed shuffle, languid on the surface but with an angry, conscious current of lyricism about where we’re at underneath. But then, it’s been a busy year creatively for …
TRACK: Skinshape – ‘Arrogance Is The Death Of Men’: shimmering bliss with a wise message about where we’re at
NOT AN artist content to rest on his laurels, ever restless, ever exploring, Will Dorey, who records as Skinshape, is set to release his second full-length album of the year; his second in three months, in fact. It was only at the beginning of September, the very end of the summer heat, that he dropped …
TRACK: The Still Brothers feat. Marina B – ‘Wake Up’: delightfully sleepy breakz
NEW YORK’S Still Brothers, who announced their signing on the dotted line for Hoxton’s Lewis Recordings back in midsummer with the uplifting jazz breaks of “The Deep” (we took a butcher’s, here) have just dropped their second delicious missive, “Wake Up”, for which they’ve called on the services of Brazilian cantora Marina B. Take a …
See the lyric video for PELA’s ‘In The Young’: blissful summer ambient pop
PELA, the duo of Olly Shelton and Hannah Coombes who delight in a line of stoned immaculate, blissful chillout, have just dropped their latest single, “In The Young” – you can watch the lyric video below. We’ve covered the singles they’ve been dropping right through the summer: we found “South Of” “set us adrift on …
PREMIERE: Demsky – ‘Cold Coffee’: a chilled drink and loose-limbed, ambient downbeat
IT’S BEEN a proper learning curve: I mean, we’ve all had to find our own ways of dealing with … this, haven’t we? Whatever gets you through. Personally I’ve got friends who’ve deep-dived into utter vinyl addiction; who’ve really got into 5k running, or taken up painting for the very first time; who’ve planted out …