Reviews – Page 4

Single review: Galantis – ‘No Money’

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just give Galantis your 99p and sing your overdraft out.

Originally published in The Edge

Christian Karlsson and Linus Eklöw are no strangers to breakout pop success, adding to their personal hit counts (respective examples include ‘Toxic’ and ‘I Love It’) in 2015 with two UK top 10 singles in ‘Runaway (U & I)’ and ‘Peanut Butter Jelly’ that summoned their Galantis brand of melodic house-pop into the mainstream conscience. Almost exclusively, it uses a formula whereby an endless stream of anonymous vocalists chant pent-up, hollow emotions over euphoric synth explosivity in lieu of conventional choruses. When elaborated over the course of a 49 minute Pharmacy appointment, this concoction becomes rather sickly, and their tracks are easily divided between happy and sad camps.

‘No Money,’ their latest palatable microdose, premiered at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival during one of their terrifyingly acrobatic DJ sets and attempts to smudge those frontiers together. On the lyrical front, it’s perhaps too literal, as “I wanna run away / Anywhere out this place” and “Spread it like peanut butter jelly / Do it like I owe you some money” become a hyperactive lovechild of “I ain’t giving you a dollar / This time I ain’t gonna run away.” The vocals, coming from a belligerent and penniless youthful chanter sure to resonate with students around the land, are an irritatingly repetitive focal point, distorted gently towards 15-second flurries of percussion that escalate to the even more obvious period of flail-spurring and alleviation of pressure to allow the verse to be repeated. Continue reading “Single review: Galantis – ‘No Money’”

Live review: RÜFÜS at Heaven, London

The Australian dance trio brought carefree summer sounds to their first sold-out London crowd.

Originally published in The Edge

For the first night of RÜFÜS’ sold-out stint at Westminster’s Heaven, the best spot in the house belonged to no human. Above the revellers, who clambered onto each others’ shoulders and bobbed incandescently through every repeating second, sat a sole beach ball, a symbol of the Sydney trio’s most fitting climate and their audience’s geographical cravings. Through selections from homeland chart-toppers Atlas and January’s Bloom, cemented by choruses striving for yet somehow eluding irksomeness by repetition, blinding lights and lyrical idylls brought an essence of their Instagram feed to an arched cavern hidden beneath London’s alleged spring. Continue reading “Live review: RÜFÜS at Heaven, London”

Single review: Blonde & Craig David – ‘Nothing Like This’

Re-rewind, and the crowd say “1990s” (in a good way).

Originally published in The Edge

If we were to re-rewind back as few as six months, we’d find Craig David as a longlost relic of garage’s prime; a pinnacle of a genre lost in time who’d sailed off into the Miami sunset through a haze of R&B mediocrity almost a decade prior. His apparent parting gifts were Rita Ora and Tinchy Stryder, who both appeared on his Greatest Hits lead cut ‘Where’s Your Love’ long before their own successful releases (which were, similarly, followed by paychecks from sessions with Simon Cowell and the Chuckle Brothers). His limelight was fleeting yet fruitful, putting Southampton on the map as a source of enchanting, very British dance music with a robust soulful varnish, and single-handedly making beanie hats a fashion statement. With the fame came the allure of South Beach, possibly named for the direction his musical output then took. Continue reading “Single review: Blonde & Craig David – ‘Nothing Like This’”

EP review: Charli XCX – Vroom Vroom

The new label and its eponymous EP send mainstream pop underground to an alarmingly enjoyable effect.

Originally published in The Edge

The ascension of Charli XCX from Bishop’s Stortford to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 is peculiar to fathom. One moment, you’re uploading tracks to MySpace with titles like ‘!Franchesckaar!,’ attending raves to perform with your parents, and signed to Orgy Music (which is apparently a genuine record label); the next you’re pop’s resident punk edge, trashing hotels and raucously bitching from Los Angeles to Tokyo, yet still having the approachable youth appeal to pull off a theme song for tearjerking young adult tale The Fault In Our Stars.

This apparent lack of intermediacy makes her, seemingly, the perfect fit to mesh with the incredibly bizarre and similarly bombastic PC Music label/genre/subculture/social study/pyramid scheme. On this bridge to the surely inevitable third album later this year, she launches Vroom Vroom, her own experimental pop vanity collective, and Vroom Vroom, a concise and intense four track EP to go with it produced by aural oddball SOPHIE. Continue reading “EP review: Charli XCX – Vroom Vroom”

Single review: Philip George & Dragonette – ‘Feel This Way’

Two bars of repeated piano? The impeccable Dragonette? Inferences of Earth, Wind & Fire? It’s almost as if Philip George knows the formula to a summer smash.

Originally published in The Edge

With the BRIT Awards taking place on Wednesday and Philip George’s bedroom-produced debut ‘Wish You Were Mine’ up for the British Single award, his third shot up at the top of the charts has prematurely beckoned the season of commercially-oriented house releases. Alongside veteran Canadian electropop ensemble Dragonette, the light nineties vibe of ‘Feel This Way’ easily crafts his most enjoyable release yet. Continue reading “Single review: Philip George & Dragonette – ‘Feel This Way’”

Album review: Eric Prydz – Opus

A decade in the making, Prydz’ debut LP calls on ’80s synthpop and his famous progressive house for a sparkling journey through his abilities.

Originally published in The Edge

It was almost a dozen years ago that Eric Prydz almost displaced then-Prime Minister Tony Blair from his rowing machine with some rather provocative aerobics. 2004 single ‘Call On Me,’ a Stevie Winwood sample, spent five weeks at the top of the UK charts and, aged 7 and still only understanding music through the prism of ITV’s Saturday morning compendium CD:UK, Prydz’ self-maligned track served as my vulgar introduction to house music. By the time ‘Pjanoo’ was beaten to Number 1 by only Katy Perry four years later, an appreciation for the discipline and the man in particular had begun to properly gestate.

Numerous releases under countless guises later, including a three disc compilation under his dancefloor-centric alias Pryda in 2012, Prydz has at last put an album out under his own name. Opus requires patience, lasting beyond two hours, however the evident influences from the synth-pop upon which he feasted in his youth prevents it from feeling tedious. Continue reading “Album review: Eric Prydz – Opus”

Super Bowl 50 half-time show review

Coldplay form an all-star cast of Bruno Mars and Beyoncé for a fitting tribute to our zeitgeist and the circus of handegg encapsulating it for the fiftieth time.

The fiftieth Super Bowl, a mildly-farcical advertising hoarding won by an ageing out-of-place Budweiser-swilling sexual harasser who happens to be one of the finest quarterbacks in the history of the National Football League, fell subject to its traditional half-time excursion into the world of popular music on Sunday night in not-San Francisco’s Levi’s Stadium. Contrary to the most earnest efforts and headline billing of British quartet Coldplay, the show – or, at least, cultural perception of it – was seized by a duelling Beyoncé and Bruno Mars before an estimated live television audience of, according to an industry insider, “one absolute fuckload.”

Chris Martin and his bandmates took to a temporary stage on the churned field much like any other stadium show they’d put on, surrounded by screaming fans and Pepsi logos atop a chromatic stage shaped like the centrepiece of the cover of recent record A Head Full of Dreams and travelling around it with an assured blend of timidness and arrogance. Martin began by repeating the opening lines of ‘Yellow’ to soundtrack the flooding of the field with peripheral extras, before launching into the more fitting tones of ‘Viva La Vida’ and ‘A Sky Full of Stars.’ Regardless of the context or inevitable financial incentive, to see people – Martin included – rhythmically bouncing to Coldplay as if they were in a Las Vegas superclub with Calvin Harris on deck feels somewhat incongruous yet, as Martin loosened up by removing his patchwork jacket and relieving his knees from their unique gravitational exertions, the frantic medley of the band’s more joyous pop material soon settled into a chromatic groove aided by the card panels distributed throughout the venue. Continue reading “Super Bowl 50 half-time show review”

Single review: ODESZA feat. Zyra – ‘It’s Only’

Like the eye of a storm, vengeful lyricism and serene instrumentation combine for ODESZA’s incredible (and surely inevitable) second LP swansong.

Originally published in The Edge

Few in the electronic world can match ODESZA when it comes to atmospheric, emotional production. In 2014 the Seattle duo of Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight put out their second record In Return, a luscious and bewildering journey touching on hip-hop, pop, and orchestral beauty that continues to unveil further nuances even after dozens of listens, defying the prevalent disposability of much of the genre. Continue reading “Single review: ODESZA feat. Zyra – ‘It’s Only’”

Single review: Rat Boy – ‘Move’

Rat Boy’s latest fits its titular bill, but vocal lethargy extinguishes any fulfilment.

Originally published in The Edge

Rat Boy‘s apparent apathy to all that is going on around him grows increasingly. Perhaps it is purely the facade of a young songwriter poised to explode with a lackadaisical Jamie T impression and a dodgy MP3 of some Beastie Boys record. New single ‘Move,’ however, suggests some real difficulties in transferring potential “NRG” into a consistent recorded package for a more discerning crowd. Continue reading “Single review: Rat Boy – ‘Move’”

Album review: Justin Bieber – Purpose

It’s not horrendous, honest.

Originally published for The Edge’s album of the year countdown

Justin Bieber had it made. After a career as an irritating tween catnip saw him sell over 40 million records in the US and amass more Twitter followers than anyone but Katy Perry, he began the stereotypical descent into chaos that befalls many a young celebrity. He was getting arrested for egging neighbours and druggedly driving Lamborghinis. The rails he’d fallen off were bespoke, but rapidly fading away. 2015 changed that. Continue reading “Album review: Justin Bieber – Purpose”