MUSIC: 'Supernatant' is Supernatural

Matthew Mercer releases his second full-length album 'Supernatant' today. Where his last full-length, Pianissimo Possibile was a collection of beautiful pieces based around cut up piano recordings and stuttering electronic beats, Supernatant is an even starker collection. Waves of ambient drones and tones, beatless and haunting, flow through 11 tracks.

This giant mood piece definitely shifts in subtle ways. Headphones and patience are a must to really immerse yourself in all the detailing that Mercer has put into each track. The press release asks the listener to "play loud" and I agree.

If the audio only atmospherics aren't enough for some of you visually needy out there, Mercer has filmed a video piece for each track. Yes, that is 11 separate video pieces that satisfy the filmmaker in Mercer and the idea of soundtracking such an immersive headphone trip. Natural snow coated forests, urban transportation tunnels, stormy intense skies, desolate ocean shores, twinkly city lights, menacing stark woods, every one of these makes appearances in the video album. The full video playlist can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNJQIqf8idY&list=PLvV_NsZF_UopVJKLfXTYElY66g24KdgQN

As winter fades into spring (or fades back to winter for the East Coasters), Supernatant plays a perfect soundtrack.

Listen/buy the album here: https://matthewmercer.bandcamp.com/

If you enjoy it, please repost about the release. Word-of-mouth makes these musical adventures work.

MUSIC: Bjork's Bjroken Heart and Vulnerable 'Vulnicura'

Due to this modern world of thieves and impatient peoples (sometimes two-in-one), we have a lot of superstars' music and albums being leaked early. First it was Madonna and Rebel Heart (but c'mon, you wanted to hear the quality before you put money down on her songs, hoping for some return to form and not Hard Candy + MDNA.)

Now, Bjork, just days after announcing her new album Vulnicura is to be released in March, saw it leaked all over the internet, spreading faster than a speeding volta.

Like Madonna and her last album, this is apparently Bjork's "breakup album" with her partner/husband(?), former fashion model turned performance/video/installation artist Matthew Barney.

Just nine tracks, albeit many of them lengthy, I strapped on my iPod to get lost in her universe again, and with trepidation. Her last album, 2011's Biophilia left me cold. It wasn't her first album to be difficult listening or challenging (that was 2004's Medulla for me) but the whole construction of the enterprise (the apps, the educational elements, the instruments being built) put the music in second place to the "project" at large. It was the first Bjork album where I felt she seemed lost in the murky depths and noise and bluster swirling around her.

From Vulnicura's opening track "Stone Milker" I was hooked. The voice, up front and center, the wall of lush strings pulling her along and the warmth building with each minute. She was singing about her heart, feelings, emotions and not about rocks and viruses and moon particles. The excitement and hurt is palpable.

Buzzed about producer Arca handles most of the tracks co-production but his very distinct sound (present on last year's Xen album) only bubbles up on the excellent track "History of Touches." Gloomy British electronic soundscaper The Haxan Cloak handles production on only one track "Family," a statement of intent about her current situation. "The death of my family...the mother and the child...the father and the child." No doubt about her daughter with Barney.

The Antony-assisted song "Atom Dance" is a return to their Volta duet but beamed from the moon, all cut-up vocals and skittery strings and beats, where "The Dull Flame of Desire" sounds like a well-oiled showtune in comparison.

The centerpiece of the album is "Black Lake," a ten-minute epic that starts with chamber strings and halfway through leads to 4/4 beats before splintering again and slowing down, the strings (on this song and the album) always omnipresent with the force of waves.

Bjork seems to have finally dropped her love of shrieking horn sections for a return to a string-based world that envelops every song on Vulnicura, much to my mutual surprise and pleasure. "Mutual Core" no more.

Bjork seems to be heartbroken on this album and that couldn't make us more pleased, horrible audience that we are. This is a true return to form we've been waiting for for ages.

MUSIC: The Best in Music for 2014

1. CARIBOU Our Love

I've been aware of Dan Snaith's Caribou project for years and occassionally would grab tracks or hear snippets and find it all pleasing, pretty, but a bit dull. So the announcement of another Caribou album left me with a case of the shrugs. I was wrong. This grabbed me from the first second I heard it and held me. Warm, sunny, shimmery, dancey, poppy, soft, mysterious, quiet and loud, romantic, brilliant. Love it.

2. FKA TWIGS LP1

Although she had released two under-the radar EP releases, this debut album seemingly comes out of nowhere...to slay. Modernized trip-hop, R'n'B put through the slow/churning/shadowy filter is on display here and it sounds fresh. Although the new genre of quiet, slow, "Blog-Hop/Blog'n'B" (look, I created a shitty music media genre name) has a reigning queen. You don't need to scream, oversing, and melisma to out-queen Snoreyonce. Twigs has more interesting ideas in her fingertip than most American divas do in their fame-hungry clutches.

3. DAMON ALBARN Everyday Robots

Even though his career has spanned nearly 25 years of releasing music, Blur/Gorillaz/etc. frontman Albarn had never released a solo album before. What a wonderfully subtle, quiet but steady LP. Acoustic guitar strums, plaintive piano chords, sputtering drum programming; it's like all of Blur's best ballads on one album. It's "Tender" meets "No Distance Left to Run" warm melancholic ache that Damon does best with his wounded vocals.  

4. ROBYN & ROYKSOPP Do It Again / ROYKSOPP The Inevitable End

Not one but two Royksopp releases greet us this year, along with the news that the band, although not splitting, will not release "albums" anymore; the new paradigm? Robyn is back in equal force on the EP and "Monument" may be one of her best tracks. After a teaser of an EP, Royksopp also unleashed what amounts to a double album of new material; the highlights feature The Irrepressibles' Jamie on a lion's share of vocal duties with his delicate croon. 

5. APHEX TWIN Syro

It was one of those Bowie-esque returns after a decade off, Richard D. James is back and it's like the '90s never disappeared. Not to say that all of these tracks were sitting on a shelf during a drum n' bass flurry of work; there is still plenty of dateless electronic squelching, squirming and slithering from James' master hands. 

BIGGEST "SURPRISED THAT I LIKED IT" OF THE YEAR

PERFUME GENIUS Too Bright - Neither of his previous albums did anything for me; quite the opposite, I found them grating. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really dug his third album. He's embraced a fuller band sound, electronics, and not too many fluttery, breathy, gaspy piano and vocal ballads.

TOP FIVE HOUSEY/POP MOMENTS

1. HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR The Feast of the Broken Heart - A great return after the lackluster 2nd LP. Fun, sexy and pure '90s house. John Grant oddly makes a great house vocalist

2. THE 2 BEARS The Night is Young - Needs trimming and not as good as their debut, but the good songs are actually great songs

3. MICROFILM Chemical Robotics EP - Yeah, it's us but it's good; download for free here: https://microfilm.bandcamp.com/album/chemical-robotics and Is This It? https://soundcloud.com/microfilmmusic/is-this-it-full-version

4. JESSIE WARE Tough Love (Cyril Hahn remix) - Best track on the pretty good new LP; hoping the album would have a few house bangers like "Imagine It Was Us"

5. AZALEIA BANKS Broke With Expensive Taste - Apart from being a turd of a person, the housey tracks on here are fun

TOP FIVE UNDER THE RADAR RELEASES

1. ARCA Xen - Happy to know that this South American gay electronic adventurer will be working with Bjork on her new LP; Xen is a sprawling spiky but pretty journey of an album

2. LEON VYNHALL Music for the Uninvited - melancholic art house music; house music for headphone listening; lovely

3. THROWING SNOW Mosaic - I always new trip-hop would come back in vogue, albeit modernized for this century

4. EAST INDIA YOUTH Total Strife Forever - An odd mix of instrumental synthscapes, techno, dark synth(not)pop

5. GAZELLE TWIN Unflesh - Don't be worried The Knife has called it quits this year, you have Gazelle Twin, a one-woman electro stark and dark soundscape

HONORABLE MENTION: OVERDUE WELCOME RETURNS

1. MORRISSEY World Peace is None of Your Business - So happy he still had something left in him; arguably his best work in 20 years

2. VASHTI BUNYAN Heartleap - This is the year I really discovered her; suppposedly her last album, so what a way to go

3. SOFT PINK TRUTH Why Do the Heathens Rage? - Bizarre high concept album that oddly and noisily works. Funny and scary and cool

4. NENEH CHERRY The Blank Project - Not your '80s Neneh. Stripped down and loose and darkly pop. Cool

5. CIBO MATTO Hotel Valentine - The lovely sense of fun and inventiveness is back

FIVE RELEASES THAT ARE GOOD, BUT TREADING WATER; I NEED MORE FROM THEM

1.WILD BEASTS Present Tense - A slight improvement over Smother, but more of the edges are being sanded off

2. THE HORRORS Luminous - A poppier, slicker version of 'Skying'; pretty and spot-the-references fun, but I want a bit of the angularity back

3. LANA DEL RAY Ultraviolence - A nice twist to not repeat the trip-hop influence, I just wonder how much gas she has left in her

4. THOM YORKE Tomorrow's Modern Boxes - A pleasant listen but evaporates right after.The Eraser-lite

5. ZOLA JESUS Taiga - She wanted this to be her big "pop" album, but it was too dark, grand, and same-same to make it

DISAPPOINTMENTS

1. ERLEND OYE Legao - I don't know where to begin with my disappointment; reggae-lite? Snoozy, boring, bland, and aimless. His first solo studio album in...11 years is this? And he currently thinks electronic music is "boring"? Try this instead: https://microfilm.bandcamp.com/track/johnny-x-lost-his-girl-to-erlend-oye-the-world

2. LA ROUX Trouble in Paradise - Tinnier than the debut, even though it has slicker production. A long wait to be unimpressed.

3. LYKKE LI I Never Learn - Her last LP was one of my faves of that year so a bit disappointed how blah this all sounds as a whole.

4. JJ V - I forgot I was listening to it as I went on. I wonder if the magic has faded with these guys?

5. SINEAD O'CONNOR I'm Not Bossy... - The lead single "Take Me to Church" was amazing, the best song's she's done in decades easily, but I was not as thrilled by the rest, sadly.

Sorry for the delay; life happens.

"Where do you get this stuff from...T-shirts?" - Showgirls, 1995.

I'll be posting a year-end Top 10 movies and Top 10 albums list soon, but in the meantime, enjoy:

FILM: 'Lucy' in the Sky with LOTS of Blue Diamonds

Summer movies are a time for big-budget, popcorn-level ridiculousness. But is it too much to ask us to use our brain? OK, how about 1.4% of our brain.

Brain power is the topic at hand in French director Luc Besson's new film Lucy. Besson is a man not known for subtlety, realism, or depth, but they all can't be Bergman can they?

The conceit of Lucy (let me keep it brief as not to offer too many spoilers) is that humans normally only use 10% of our cerebral power (a widely spread cliche), so what if by chemical means, humans could use more: 20, 30, 40, up to 100%? The means? Obviously, it is having massive amounts of synthetic hormones surgically inserted into your body as a drug mule (in a very unsafe looking thin plastic sack).

Scarlett Johansson is one such (albeit unwitting) drug mule. The fun of the "get to the chase" set-up of the movie is palpable. There is barely an intro to her character before she is thrust into a world of killer Taiwanese mobsters, locked briefcases, assassins, chases, guns blazing, and mysterious surgeries.

The Run Lola Run fast-paced flight of the film is a gas. Taiwan to Berlin to Paris, it all whizzes by. No matter how this party girl student becomes knowledgeable in heavy firearm use, acrobatic fight choreography, learning foreign languages, massive amounts of cash to buy designer heels and same-day international, first-class flights from Asia to Europe (she's a student, right?), it can all be explained away.

Bright blue crystal superdrugs.

You should expect no less from the creator of The Professional, The Fifth Element, and a Joan of Arc reboot. Besson is ridiculous and if you shut off your brain, you can learn to love him too.

MUSIC: Time for 'Church'

Sinead O'Connor's new album I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss is out this month and this, the lead single is out now. Her last album, 2012's How About I Be Me, was a better than you'd expect, a somewhat return to form. Even with that DREADFUL cover art, it was her best album since 1994's Universal Mother.

The new single is a big anthemic pop number, Sinead in 'rock-out' vibe. Every one of her album's has a few to go along with the delicate, beautiful ballads. She'll never be 19 and angry again (we have to let it go), so it will never be The Lion and the Cobra (just as The Cure will never get back Kiss Me, Morrissey will never get another The Queen is Dead, etc.)

For a 47-year-old mother of four, she can still rip off wigs, rock bald heads, and strike a guitar chord in a tight dress like a true star.

MUSIC: La Rude

Taking five years to make your long-awaited second album has killed careers. If you don't believe me, check out The Stone Roses' Second Coming or Elastica's The Menace. They both never recovered.

2009 saw the debut album release of the androgynously elfin Elly Jackson (aka La Roux). Released amid the "Girls with Synths" flush of 2008-09 (a genre I also coined as 'The L Word Ladies'; La Roux, Little Boots, Ladyhawke, Lady Gaga; I know I'm missing a few), her debut album stood out among the clan. Not only did her junior Tilda Swinton looks disengage her from the blonde sexpots, her flutey, sometimes shrill vocals made her even more distinct. It's 21st century pop; you've got to stand out somehow because the market is flooded.

After years of resting up, throat issues, splitting with bandmates (Ben Langmaid was her writing partner/keyboardist, the silent/hidden other half a la Will Gregory of Goldfrapp), nerves, etc., she's come back with Trouble in Paradise (indeed). Gone is most (not all) of the tinny, trebley, shrill "electronics only" approach of the self-titled debut. Having said that, gone is a lot of the thrill of her laptop take on the early '80s synthpop of Yaz and Eurythmics. There is no 'Bulletproof' here.

Trouble has a warmer, slightly fuller sound to combat the cries of her being a one-style wonder or aping the debut. But where as La Roux was full on 1983, Trouble is full on 1986. It should be written in stone somewhere, the early '80s beats the mid '80s every time.

There are a few bright spots on the album though, don't get me wrong. Opener 'Uptight Downtown' adds the strum of funk guitar and a smoother singing style overall (keeping this up for most of the album):

Several tracks on the LP follow this style, sort of if a lightweight version of Grace Jones' early '80s backing band was fronted by a young Annie Lennox. OK, maybe not as cool as that sounds.

Trouble does get its mid 80s spirit right; the album is only nine tracks long - some killer ('Sexotheque', some filler ('Paradise is You'). But I have faith in Jackson to come back with another album sooner rather than later. Here's hoping she follows kindred spirit Lennox's path, but avoids the "We like guitars!"/rock-isms of Eurythmics' Revenge and goes straight for Eurythmics' Savage.