Slipped Discs January 2016

Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd

Jenny Gillespie

Jenny Gillespie

Initial Thoughts

Fooled, schooled and deluded, January albums adjust what’s real to account for the unbelievable. Beyond logic, aberrations awake. Whether simmering glimmering singer-songwriter MIRANDA LEE RICHARDS’ fire-licked hipster wickedness, “Echoes of Dreamtime,” hot and bothered night-crawlers, slinky modern-rockers THE BLACK QUEEN’s preening electro-prone romance, “Fever Daydream,” or poised alt-pop composer JENNY GILLESPIE’s friendly acoustic art-jazz adventures, “Cure For Dreaming,” 2016 begins by spurring the imagination, fueling the future and challenging reality.


Disc Reviews


Daughter - Not To Disappear

Daughter - Not To Disappear

Daughter

Album title: Not To Disappear
Record Label: Glassnote

Cooked in narcotic tonics and strewn in saw-tooth gauze, Daughter’s frail pale sunset introspections turn veiled dream-rock into arrested confessions wrenched from tempestuous interventions. Drenched in repentant tension, “Disappear,” veers fearlessly into fierce bittersweet longing as hushed lyrics hung under contorted atmospherics bake deep existential aches into mesmerizing empathy, trapping slow claustrophobic explosions within tangled temptations roasting smoldering ghost-poached transmissions.

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Swahili Blonde - and only the melody was real

Swahili Blonde - and only the melody was real

Swahili Blonde

Album title: and only the melody was real
Record Label: Neurotic Yell

Junkyard-robot paradises swerving and lurching to choreographed sci-fi smack-downs, “melody,” builds rattling plastic masterworks pulled between trashy studio catastrophes; calm Kraftwerk charm spread over squelchy face-melters for a paved yellow-brick cavalcade. Spooky tinker-toy goofs spilling from ray-gun playgrounds in scintillating bionic burlesque, Swahili Blonde’s strong contradictory mysteries evaporate with strangely engaging after-tastes of timeless grinds from sleek, creaky off-kilter windmill-tilters.

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Laser - Night Driver

Laser - Night Driver

Laser

Album title: Night Driver
Record Label: Foreseen Entertainment

Stroboscopic doctors operating on dance-floor courtesans kidnap ultra-metropolitan happenings and tunnel under hard-wired after-parties as master craftsmen Laser chills silken willfulness into delicious post-modern parables; frisky disco whispers visit neon grooves for synth-pop dipped in cloaked programs. Drive-by glamour-shots caught in paparazzi spotlights, “Driver,” slides behind electric dreams pulsing in sultry weekend getaways, speeding through tubular maneuvers, lighting incandescent souls.

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The High Llamas - Here Come The Rattling Trees

The High Llamas - Here Come The Rattling Trees

The High Llamas

Album title: Here Come The Rattling Trees
Record Label: Drag City

Sleepy bossa nova teases tweaked in breezy rose-colored twee, “Trees,” plants lounge-bound jazz under intimate fictions harvesting fizzy individual vignettes afloat in arpeggiated patience from mellow bedfellows. Caressed in pleasant sentiments washed in soft somnambulist magnificence, pedigreed harmonies squeeze quaint counterpoint into subtle unhurried melodies as THL’s sedate landscapes welcome warm organs, sunny marimbas, titillating harpsichord and shy nylon-string guitar.

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Aoife O'Donovan - In The Magic Hour

Aoife O'Donovan - In The Magic Hour

Aoife O'Donovan

Album title: In The Magic Hour
Record Label: Yep Roc

Smart and languid, rich and fluid, O’Donovan captains swift literate dissertations navigating renegade chamber-folk arrangements with supple couplets mustering robust poetry. Pithy descriptions slipped in winsome acoustic rhythms and heartbeat-sweetened bop, “Magic,” bundles sharp departures within swirling mermaid currents, wrapping eagle-eye observations around resonant musical tributaries rooted in honest feeling. Aoife returns to Wisconsin March 31st playing Stoughton Opera House.

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Starlight Girls - Fantasm

Starlight Girls - Fantasm

Starlight Girls

Album title: Fantasm
Record Label: 588105 Records DK2

Strong-armed sass splashed in passionate pop-rock, “Fantasm.” stalks shell-shocked old-school cool for a retro-riveting peepshow hanging baited beats on meaty hooks in roasted licks from suave harlots. Coyly toying with stylish guile, the intoxicating, Starlight Girls go solid-gold aerobics on stealth-bomber romps selling sly jive to tube-way clubbers clutching runaway cravings for go-go booted doo-wop and tasered New Wave funk.

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Final Thoughts

With ciphers for titles, incongruity rules several beautifully inscrutable January albums. Puzzle over riptide-guided indie-rock pilots SHEARWATER’s caring, careening and captivating, “Jet Plane and Oxbow, while translating dance fanatic and rockin’ cyber-scientist PILLAR POINT’s sheer, clear weirdness inside the tireless, “Marble Mouth.” Dictionary-diggers will delight unraveling the highly imaginative talents powering the delicate and hesitant kinetics behind intriguing truth-seeker CROSS RECORD’s complicated proto-folk opus, Wabi-Sabi,” while blissful wordsmiths find wistful lists, glorious portals and torrid chorals in thunderstruck church-rock hustlers THE BESNARD LAKES’ mammoth tampered canvases, “A Coliseum Complex Museum.”