Knowing the origins of Shearwater’s latest album The Golden Archipelago only helps to increase its dramatic effect, as lead singer/island explorer Jonathan Meiburg shares the mighty stories of his experience. The album completes the third in a trilogy by Shearwater that includes 2006’s Palo Santo and 2008’s Rook, centering on the imminent threat the human population poses to the safety and health of the natural world. In certain spots Shearwater appear to have been listening to some Sunset Rubdown records as Meiburg’s soaring vocals seem to channel the dragon slayer spirit of Spencer Krug, but the grounded reality of Meiburg’s travels and his grievances with the human population keep the lyrics from remaining a solely esoteric instrument.

“Meridian” opens with the chanting anthem of Bikini Atoll, sung by Bikinians in exile on the islet of Kili, where they have been forced to live since atomic tests left their native island uninhabitable. Pianos, strings, a muted acoustic and various vocal harmonies weave in and out with gentle timbre. “Black Eyes” presents a story as grand as its accompanying music. The attention to pianos, organs, coronets and high hat project Meiburg’s poetic request of mankind to rise up: “Come down from lion’s back / call down to the endless sleepers/ give life to the dimming days/ that run in an endless stream now.”

The Golden Archipelgo is expansive, deeply moving and poetic. Much like traveling amongst a foreign landscape, listeners should revisit the album and discover the beauty they may have previously overlooked. The album is an epic, most effectively listened to as a whole package – a feat not attempted by many today. And the result is quite good for those who prefer their music with a salient message. Otherwise, to the apathetic, it could risk coming off as a downer. But carrying this label is a burden one must always face in exposing the truths of the world.

More info via Matador Records and/or the band’s MySpace

Watch the video for “Hidden Lakes” here

by: Bene Garcia

From: Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star – 1998 – Rawkus Records

posted by: Harold Johns III

Currently adding the final flourishes to their forthcoming 4AD studio album, Los Angeles outfit Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti will release “Round and Round” on April 26 as a limited 7″ and digital single.

Evolved from a solo venture into a fully-fledged band (currently comprised of frontman Ariel Pink, Kenny Gilmore, Aaron Sperske and Tim Koh), “Round and Round” and its flipside “Mistaken Wedding” are collaborative efforts that showcase the band’s unmistakable motif which combines the hazy nostalgia for folk rock from the 70’s with the experimental lo-fi pop music of today.

Fans can hear “Round and Round” on 4AD.com as of today. New subscribers to the band’s mailing list can also download an MP3 of the track with the media player below.

Ariel Pink’s MySpace

posted by: Brent Carter

Matthew Cooper, aka Eluvium, has created a blend of ambient shoe gaze drone flirting with piano pop sentiments in his latest release Similes. The incorporation of brevity into his compositions makes the album both expansive and digestible all at once. From minimalist techno drone to looped, sampled laptop layering; Eluvium creates an interesting background blend for his rich piano and vocals.

“The Motion Makes Me Last” starts off with a digitally delayed and repeated drone that bleeds into Cooper’s voice, a previously uncharted area for Eluvium – and a feat, as Cooper’s vocals go exactly where he intends. “Nightmare 5” is lush and carefully woven, with the audible attention oscillating from passionate piano riffs back to great walls of gorgeous ambient drone. And the power of the piano writing takes the forefront on “Making Up Minds.”

Although clocking in at a minimal length unusual for most ambient enthusiasts, the album feels rewardingly deep. With Similes, Eluvium’s subtle craft unfolds slowly, reading like a weathered hardcover classic. As the album comes to a close with “Cease to Know,” electronic wisps carry the listener out, a perfect complement to nighttime drivers lost in both the luminescent blur of a city’s lights and the catalog of their own scattered history.

More info about Similes can be found via Temporary Residence

by: Bene Garcia

Kieran Hebden has been been applauded for his work under the moniker Four Tet for twelve years, never straying toward the conventional length and melodic calibrations most are familiar with. On his latest, There is Love in You, Hebden is all about immersing himself in the controlled electroniscape of his jazz and post-rock influenced technological abilities.

“Angel Echo” revolves around the chopped and blipped sample of delicate feminine vocals repeating “there is love in you.” The track unfolds as it adds layers in a fashion similar to a minute hand moving around a clock – the melodies expand, move and grow before you can even notice – and most of the album evolves this way. “Love Cry” starts out with dark glitchy drones layered over one another. The house drum loop comes in slowly and over nine plus minutes Hebden manipulates the layers with meticulous attention to detail. The same process of sampling the sensual female vocals is repeated again but in a way that “love cry” is manipulated to sound like “love me.” The ending effect of the song is a reward for those with enough patience to wait for Hebden’s release.

The stand out track on There is Love in You is “Sing.” More than any other track on the album “Sing” is ready at the gates with alluring blips and hypnotically dark undertones. The organic and synthetic samples are blended together in a fashion complementary to both Hebden’s folktronica experiences and his post-rock timbre. There are gentle hand claps, wooden toy drums, vocal coos and digitally tweaked samples of high bells and chimes blended in a way that resemble an evolved version of Hebden’s process on 2003’s Rounds.

Some of his more erratic, faster paced merging of unorthodox house rhythms and vast coalescing of dark undertones that identified Rounds and 2008’s Ringer would benefit the album in some spots. But There is Love in You captures Four Tet in a different perspective. It’s a new paradigm that Four Tet has reached by elevating his most salient of self-defined principals of production and tone. The album works very well for long-time Four Tet fans, and will have the same effect on newcomers willing to maintain the patience necessary to fish out the album’s multi-layerd accomplishments.

More info via Domino

by: Bene Garcia