A Certain Ratio Move the Past Into the Future with ‘1982’
A Certain Ratio have always been willing to fiddle with their sound. That they do so in 1982 doesn’t surprise and fits with their rejuvenation in the 2020s.
A Certain Ratio have always been willing to fiddle with their sound. That they do so in 1982 doesn’t surprise and fits with their rejuvenation in the 2020s.
With a bloated runtime and a tendency toward monochromatic synth textures, M83’s ninth studio record Fantasy indulges one too many of the group’s clichés.
Electronic producer Daniel Avery’s Ultra Truth is both a danceable and listenable collection that packs a corporeal punch and a spiritual cleanse.
Duet Emmo’s Or So It Seems is an experimental one-off between Wire’s Lewis and Gilbert and Mute Records’ Daniel Miller. Pedigrees don’t come much better.
11 5 18 2 5 18 makes it sound like Yann Tiersen has been dabbling in deeply abstract instrumental synthesizer mood music for decades. Yes, he pulls it off.
Thirty-five years later, twin albums of demos and outtakes from cheeky British synthpop duo I Start Counting have surfaced, and they’re not without their pleasures.
Lee Ranaldo’s In Virus Times is a lockdown project through and through. Its sound, execution, and overall aesthetic stem from uncertainty and isolation.
Phew’s voice on New Decade is an instrument often disconnected from lyrics. Its job is supplemental to the amorphous tones she invokes from electronics.
Even when José González is strumming chords, he holds the spaces between strokes to create drama and nuance. There’s always something going on beneath the music.
“It’s really simple,” Yann Tiersen explains. “There is no inspiration out of [the location], there is no deeper meaning than to just juxtapose music and places.”
Yann Tiersen integrates synth elements, redefining his piano arrangements and giving each piece otherworldly layers on Kerber.
What makes The Neon Remixed so successful as a remix LP is the artists reshaping Erasure’s tunes didn’t dissect the sturdy compositions to their skeletal origins.