An extremely unexpected collaboration between Brighter Later and and the almighty Lower Spectrum. I suppose it makes a lot of sense inasmuch as these are two artists whose respective stars are fiercely on the rise but still, if someone had hinted at this a few weeks ago I would have told them they’re dreamin’. But here we are, Brighter Later doing what Brighter Later does, that is restrained, gorgeous progressive folk and Lower Spectrum reportedly dropping in those late game string arrangements. I know I’ve already talked about scenarios that are seemingly far fetched, but I’m going to put something even more ludicrous on the plate here. Imagine Ned Beckley being involved in music that wasn’t exceptional. Can’t be done can it? Think on this today.
Brighter Later themselves are notable for their 2013 record The Wolves which was described as ‘Straight Gorgey’ (The Guardian) and ‘This biz is outta control’ (SMH). There aren’t many artists in this field that captivate me still but Brighter Later have a thing and Jaye Kranz has a voice that will. not. quit. She also has a way of writing/speaking in imagery is seemingly at once vague and specific to the listening experience so if you want to feel something on your Tuesday, this is the jam. There’s a new record due sometime next year.
“Seven minutes fifty one!” you scream, bloodshot eyes darting rabidly from side to side. “Where am I going to pull a stray eight minutes from, I don’t even have time to shower at the moment let alone indulge in glorious, glorious progressive dance music!”
You’re agitated but you’re gonna play it cool today because here at Sound Doctrine I have but one motto, and that is ‘Have Fun With It’. Bad haircut? Have fun with it. Your exorcist is running late? Have fun with it? Xbox live store not accepting your paypal account? Have fun with it. There’s a pattern here friends and it’s a pattern of non-committal geniality you easy going sons of guns. Look at you, you’re doing it already!
This song:
a) There are Dusty Springfield look of love vocal samples cut and spliced throughout
b) It’s released through Solitaire, the upstart label of Dan Rutman and Hamish Mitchell from oh, I don’t know, ONLY ONE OF THE BEST CURRENT AUSTRALIAN BANDS THERE IS, GUYS. Correct, they are from the band I’lls who are reportedly mere moments from releasing a new song of their own.
c) There is a heavily filtered didgeridoo living in the songs third quadrant.
4) River Yarra is real name Raudie McLeod which is a great name, isn’t it?
e) It’s a marvelously textured thing that has a consistent, throbbing bed of bass across its length with some colourful sheets of synth and sample on top. It’s not rocket science but it’s driving in its patience and it’s all carefulness and it’s rather good.
Go on then:
Sometimes it’s nice to see someone making music external to the neuroses of the music industry, outside of the game. James Blackwood has no facebook, no soundcloud or twitter, no formal release plans and no idea what he is doing, most of the time. He just writes some really rather good songs, records them, puts them on his bandcamp and sends them to his friends. Inevitably he himself hates them a few months later and deletes them out of existence. In a sense it’s sort of like Snowy Nasdaq’s one song a month campaign (wherein he deletes that song at the end of its one month life) except with even less intent. James Blackwood is a cosmic deity, lobbing songs into the universe from behind a distant sun, sweaty from proximity and nebulous as all hell, later swallowing them once again in the fury of his astral vortex. Maybe just give these a listen, think about the words, think about the guitar parts, think about how lovely they are and then go see him play with Tim Fitz on Saturday night at FBi Social.
Flash Forest reminds me of a better time. It reminds me of back when Holly still posted on East To West and Flume was just a glint in his father’s eye. These days Flume is probably a father himself and and East To West is gone from the world, still awaiting reincarnating as Kanye’s second child. The injustice of it all.
Review: Good.
There’s been some heady praise for UV Boi the past 6 moths or so and in my opinion its been unwarranted. To lay the facts bare, I have never seen UV Boi perform live. I haven’t followed the story too closely, all I’ve really done is hit play on a few soundcloud streams and shrug a bit, wondering what was going on. This song is UV Boi realizing the hype, earning the praise that’s dogged him for months. Synths that sound like panflutes, generated strings and big big big vocals from Blair De Milo (a first for UV?) that sound straight from the mouth of the great Lord Craig David himself, this is a tour de feelings. Namechecking himself on every track isn’t a bad move either. He truly is the Jason Derulo of the beats scene. Upward, onward.
Hosted on Blair De Milo’s soundcloud so I don’t know if that makes this a Blair track or a UV track (or both) but it’s 2014 so those questions are less relevant than they used to be.
