Slipped Discs June 2013
Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd
Big Deal
Initial Thoughts
Whether its glitch-rich magician AIRHEAD’s breathless methods meticulously pictured in, “For Years,” or poignant alt-pop exorcists BIG DEAL’s revealing, “June Gloom,” enduring durations loom large in this summer’s musical titles. Counting out the days, globe-trotting drum-circle miracle-worker HIGH WOLF’s teeming, beat-seeking dream-machine, “Kairos: Chronos,” conjures Zen-like presence while Groove Armada’s ANDY CATO’s evocative, rhythm-skimming jazz-pop, “Times and Places,” offers twenty years of accumulated labors in one sitting. Treasure every moment.
Disc Reviews
Donna the Buffalo - Tonight Yesterday and Tomorrow
Donna the Buffalo
Album title: Tonight Yesterday and Tomorrow
Record Label: Sugar Hill Records
Bouncing between Cajun-baked hoedowns, bayou squeezebox teasers and calico mountaintop jamborees, DtB’s roots-riddled country-rock hops, skips and boogies, roasted and bolstered by smokin’ blues organ, slippery hillbilly fiddle and funky electric-guitar. Lively, laidback swamp-water blossoms arranged around frisky epiphanies, “Tonight,” plants home-grown peace and love in flower-powered honky-tonk whose rockin’ good-will two-steps between groovy patchouli zydeco and tasty jam-band reggae.
(2048) Page Views
Donna the Buffalo online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Purchase Tonight Yesterday and Tomorrow on Amazon
Free Time - Free Time
Free Time
Album title: Free Time
Record Label: Underwater People
Feigned restraint swaddled in soft-spoken verse squirms beneath FT’s narcotic combination of Kiwi-twee and New York torque. Couched in leisurely sweetness, capsized happiness and upbeat appeasements, “Free,” stands knee-deep in riff-driven fits as solid, melodic swan-songs washed in bristling wishes, modest apologies and breezy seaside jangle form thorny six-string storms churned in playful pop-rock submissions spiked with flinty home-sick indecision.
(2076) Page Views
Free Time online:
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All Tiny Creatures - Dark Clock
All Tiny Creatures
Album title: Dark Clock
Record Label: Hometapes
Synaptic bubble-wrap trapped in chattering catacombs, feather-weight cages and overlapping mattresses of calculating palpations, “Clock,” unlocks honeyed prog-pop harmonics fueled by shiny cyber-vibes deploying midi-fidgety sequences from paisley-flavored generators. Tantalizing mechanical fantasies sheathed in chrome and slathered in foam, the angelic, relentlessly kinetic ATC’s coy android chorals swirl and unfurl in pumped-up pomp; ravishing pastoral pageantry blanketed in space-age grace.
(2067) Page Views
All Tiny Creatures online:
• Website • Facebook
• Purchase Dark Clock on Amazon
Alison Moyet - the minutes
Alison Moyet
Album title: the minutes
Record Label: Cooking Vinyl
In a purring, scurrying field of dramatic shifts and electronic rifts, Moyet’s rich velvety voice guides and confides, balancing electro-baroque ballads beside power-pop moxie whose lush reductions zip in swift deliverance tastefully layered with fist-clenching tensions and emotional resolve. Forsaking and berating, the posh, polished, “minutes,” races to bewitching finishes; bold, soulful control unfolding in defiant alliance and inquisitive dignity.
(2085) Page Views
Alison Moyet online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Purchase the minutes on Amazon
Steve Gunn - Time Off
Steve Gunn
Album title: Time Off
Record Label: Paradise of Bachelors
Crafted from rustic muscle, tactical mastery and global mojo, “Time,” meanders in hypnotic chops, wiry guile and hippie serendipity; savvy tapestries weaving taunt knots within placid gymnastics. A disarming shaman with stoic vocals drawing mystical riffs from his acoustic guitar, Gunn’s pliable spirals funnel bluesy voodoo into psychotropic folk to coax intricate, intimate jams from his band’s roomy, intuitive ruminations.
(2186) Page Views
Steve Gunn online:
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Cloud Boat - Book of Hours
Cloud Boat
Album title: Book of Hours
Record Label: Apollo Records
Eerily weary, CB’s weighty, sedated galley-ship trip-hop hovers in distinctly insistent minimalism and expansive phantom ambience. Frail and ephemeral, anguished beauty confronts gentle intensity floating past wilting strokes from careful guitars; monastery murmurs unburden solemn golems simmered in cavernous synths and flickering beats as, “Hours,” tick away in tender effervescence and pensive empathy, nursing sacred aches from dark, unsettled hearts.
(1980) Page Views
Cloud Boat online:
• Website • Facebook
• Purchase Book of Hours on Amazon
Final Thoughts
Time reminds us nothing lasts forever, whether tethered to temporary pleasures like synth-pop ironists and droll jokesters FUTURE BIBLE HEROS’ bittersweet cheekiness, “Partygoing,” foregone conclusions such as Canadian indie-pop darlings IMAGINARY CITIES’ dreamy, broad-shouldered, “Fall of Romance,” or life-changing transformations as outlined in gifted folk singer-songwriter LAURA MARLING’s brilliant, resilient, and fulfilling, “Once I Was An Eagle.” Add elastic blasters and proven groovers ROYAL CANOE’s wonky, Technicolor carnival, “Today, We’re Believers,” and Cuban-born, New York-raised troubadour ELSTEN TORRES’ lilting soft-rock pilgrimage, “Waiting for Clouds,” and time is on your side.