Music

Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 English two-piece Fuck Buttons have spent the last decade crafting their own assaultive brand of electronica. Drawing influence from Aphex Twin and Mogwai, they snub gloss and perfectionism in favour of songs that are loud, coarse and engulfing. Though performed on an impressive Read more...

Zahava Seewald & Michaël Grébil - From My Mother’s House

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4.5/5 I have had a lifelong fascination with echolocation, the act of mapping an area through the use of sound. The most obvious example is sonar – the technique bats and whales use to gauge their surroundings. Echolocation is also popular among musicians, and is used by artists to Read more...

Bliss N Eso - Circus in the Sky

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 2/5 When their new album Circus in the Sky materialised in the Critic office, I hadn’t the faintest idea who Bliss N Eso were. However, I fell hook, line and sinker for the ludicrously shiny packaging the CD came in, making me just curious enough to find out. For a long time I Read more...

μ-Ziq - Chewed Corners

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 Michael Paradinas, most commonly known as μ-Ziq (pronounced “music”), is an English electronic musician. Though an influential figure in IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) over the last 20 years, he has never received quite the attention or acclaim of his contemporaries, such as Read more...

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4/5 David Lynch began his career as a solo musician with his 2011 album Crazy Clown Time, but his knack for sound design dates back a good thirty years. Lynch helped compose the unsettling ambient score to his 1977 film debut Eraserhead, and has been involved in the music for all of Read more...

Jon Hopkins - Immunity

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 5/5 Producing for Coldplay. Collaborating with Brian Eno. Scoring films. Over the course of the last decade, London-based producer Jon Hopkins has built himself an impressive CV. However, almost all of his work has been on the periphery of or in cooperation with other artists. This Read more...

Interview: Ruban Nielson (Unknown Mortal Orchestra)

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

In between touring the world and playing gigs with international acts like Grizzly Bear and Wavves, Ruban Nielson has returned to New Zealand to tour with Nielson’s current band, Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Loulou Callister-Baker had a brief and appropriately abstract conversation with Nielson to work Read more...

Let’s Get Physical

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Basti Menkes

The BestMassive Attack - Mezzanine Ignore the album cover. When it comes to “soundtracking” coitus, Massive Attack’s third album Mezzanine is the undisputed champion. Regardless of where you are, what state you’re in, who you’re with and in what position, the album’s brooding textures and Read more...

Austra - Olympia

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 Canadian synthpop outfit Austra emerged in 2011 with a bang, their first album Feel It Break among the finest debuts in recent memory. It wove gothic electronica around Katie Stelmanis’ operatic vocals to stunning effect; picture Kate Bush collaborating with The Knife and you Read more...

Kanye West - Yeezus

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Bella King

Rating: 4.5/5 The moment Yeezus, Kanye West’s sixth solo album, leaked online, it set a million keyboards around the globe on fire. Suddenly everyone was a critic, scrambling to push their opinion of an album worlds away from its predecessor, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Indeed, in Read more...