Blog Profile / Pitchfork: Reviews
| URL : | http://pitchfork.com/reviews/recent/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Music / Rock & Pop | |
| Posts on Regator: | 5466 | |
| Posts / Week: | 20.8 | |
| Archived Since: | May 7, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
Destruction Unit: Void
The mythology behind Destruction Unit is that they were born from the deserts of Arizona. But that hasn't always been the case: They began in the early 2000s when frontman (and former Reatard) Ryan Rousseau joined forces with two Memphis residents and members of the Lost Sounds: Alicja Trout and Jay Reatard. Show More Summary
Dan Friel: Total Folklore
Formerly a knob-turner in the melodic noise rock band Parts & Labor, Dan Friel went solo with 2008's Ghost Town on Important Records and now moves over to Thrill Jockey for Total Folklore. He uses cheap keyboards, chained pedals, field recordings, and knick-knacks to brew his blown-out, euphoric tunes, and records them on an ancient PC. Show More Summary
Shout Out Louds: Optica
Work felt like work, so Optica-- the fourth LP from Sweden's Shout Out Louds-- takes things a little easier. Recorded over a year and a half and produced by the band (with an assist from Radio Dept. affiliate Johannes Berglund), Optica is warm, expansive, and swimming in strings. Show More Summary
Prurient: Through the Window
The path from black metal to techno via noise is so well-travelled these days that you could, if you were feeling melodramatic, call it an exodus. It's a trip the now L.A.-based Dominick Fernow has been prolifically and prophetically...Show More Summary
Autre Ne Veut: Anxiety
Autre Ne Veut's self-titled debut was the epitome of fringe back in 2010: someone with an unwieldy handle and a staunch commitment to anonymity making warped approximations of 1980s and 90s R&B on a label that primarily trafficked in lo-fi curiosities. Show More Summary
Dog Bite: Velvet Changes
Amid the flurry of chatter inspired by the sudden release of the first My Bloody Valentine album in 22 years earlier this month was half-serious speculation about how m b v would affect the legion of indie bands still drafting in Loveless’ jet stream all these decades later. Show More Summary
Darkthrone: The Underground Resistance
When you think of Darkthrone, you think of fun, right? If you scoffed, guffawed, or simply disagreed, don't worry-- you're safely in the majority. The Norwegian band are best known, of course, for what their 1999 album labeled "ravishing...Show More Summary
Curren$y: New Jet City
Here was Curren$y, with about as much conviction as he's ever managed, on 2011's "Car Talk": "Critics say that he flow only 'bout weed/ They don't know about me." The NOLA native had reason to be defensive, as he's long been written off by some as a weed-rapper and not much more. Show More Summary
Mount Moriah: Miracle Temple
Mount Moriah is a real college town band-- though not in the pejorative sense. The band formed from a record counter friendship between singer Heather McEntire and guitarist Jenks Miller at the since-shuttered Schoolkids Records, on the University of North Carolina campus. Show More Summary
Atoms for Peace: AMOK
The Eraser was Thom Yorke’s attempt to liberate himself from the burden of being frontman for the most over-analyzed rock band in the world and explore more insular and austere forms of electronic production. Atoms for Peace is likewise...Show More Summary
Black Twig Pickers: Rough Carpenters
There's a paradox that sets the Black Twig Pickers apart from their peers. The acoustic quartet plays songs particular to the region they call home, the mountainous stretch that extends from North Carolina upward into West Virginia and Kentucky. Show More Summary
Serengeti: Saal
Serengeti has often tended towards extreme sadness in his music-- on his last record C.A.R., David Cohn ended one song by desperately screaming, "We're not immortal" over and over again-- but it's possible that his new album Saal is his most despairing yet. Show More Summary
Flume: Flume
In an interview with Dazed Digital last year, Australian beatmaker Flume said, "Music essentially boils down to two main elements, rhythm and melody. I feel tones and textures often get overlooked, so I like to take my time finding the...Show More Summary
Matmos: The Marriage of True Minds
Matmos has made a career-long game of devising increasingly outre frameworks for its records. Half the fun of any new Matmos album, in fact, is in discovering its motivational concept: examination of the sounds of an operating table, for example, or the folk music of the Civil War. Show More Summary
Jamie Lidell: Jamie Lidell
Jamie Lidell in traditionalist blue-eyed soul mode can be good; Jim is still a fine record to sink into on a weekend afternoon. But he shines when he really pushes things, playing up the unpredictable smooth-yet-sharp timbre of his voice and pitting it against a deviation of R&B that's not quite beholden to a specific style. Show More Summary
The Howling Hex: The Best of the Howling Hex
Neil Hagerty has been doing a bang-up job of ensuring Royal Trux remain the one 1990s indie-rock institution that never reforms. He's reportedly turned down multiple reunion tour offers, opted out of participating in Drag City's recent...Show More Summary
Maxmillion Dunbar: House of Woo
There's an image that keeps appearing in my head while listening to Maxmillion Dunbar's second album, House of Woo. It's of Andrew Field-Pickering, aka Maxmillion Dunbar, a balding, broad-shouldered, slightly round man who looks like someone capable of giving life-affirming hugs. Show More Summary
Waka Flocka Flame: DuFlocka Rant 2
Here’s a fun challenge: Cue up Duflocka Rant 2 through headphones at a reasonable volume and while listening to it try to accomplish anything that requires even a modicum of concentration. Read a magazine article. Write a blog post. Shop for cat food. Show More Summary
Portal: Vexovoid
Musical density can falsely suggest volume: Listening to a two-sided, 40-minute, wall-to-wall extreme noise record, for instance, can seem like an hours-long gauntlet, especially compared to a 12-track LP of the same length filled with breezy pop songs, each guided by its own system of verses, a chorus, and a bridge. Show More Summary
AraabMuzik: For Professional Use Only
Forget the title of AraabMuzik's new mixtape and look at the cover for a second. That's the producer/DJ/MPC wizard rocking the Sahara Tent at Coachella last year: It was not only one of the wildest shows I had the pleasure of witnessing in 2012, it was the culmination of one of the strangest career arcs in recent memory. Show More Summary