EP Review: Art-X & The Roots Addict - Polarity (2020)

Issued on the Original Dub Gathering imprint, Polarity is another fine mini album or EP-length release from French melodica maestro Art-X, and another collaboration with the Roots Addict. It follows on from their equally impressive Under Mi Kulcha joint release of a few years back. 

Polarity consists of six tracks, all being instrumental (voiceover samples aside), and all being resplendent in a skanky roots reggae style. Which means copious amounts of melodica, bass, vintage keys, and earthy guitar tones. 

The best tracks are opener 'Origin', plus 'The Smoke of Hell', and the super rootsy closer 'Moonlight', but they’re all decent, and you can pick up a hard-to-resist free download direct from the Original Dub Gathering website (here). 

Or you can stream the entire release below:

Introducing ... Heaven and Earth Association

Aside from a Bandcamp page, which suggests Heaven and Earth Association is a two-piece from Portland, Oregon, and a Facebook page that does little more than confirm as much, the vast expanse of the internet offers me nothing in my quest for more information about this rather beguiling musical project.

It probably doesn’t help that Heaven and Earth Association is one of the least google-able band names ever, more so if your goal is to sift the wheat from the chaff as quickly as possible. It might not even be a two-piece. It might be a solo project with an occasional helper. Or a side-project connected to another band - who can really say?

What I can say is the album released by the project in December 2019, the curiously titled 4849:1, was one of my most played lockdown musical excursions. Picked up after a tip from Fabrizio Lusso via his ever reliable WhiteLight//WhiteHeat website.

As with a lot of stuff on that site, 4849:1 is a retro-styled journey into the netherworlds of post-punk, synthpop, and coldwave, and very much to my own personal taste. 4849:1 consists of eight tracks, some of which appear to have been recorded as long ago as 2017, with the highlights being the intoxicating opener ‘Repeating Pattern’ (how is that not a sleeper indie hit?), ‘Run! Don’t Walk’, and an excellent OMD cover, ‘Almost’. The bonus being that it’s a name-your-price download. Grab one.

Kid Kawaii's Cupid & Psyche 85 Edits

Kawaii - “lovely”, “lovable”, “cute”, or “adorable” … is the culture of cuteness in Japan. It can refer to items, humans and nonhumans that are charming, vulnerable, shy, and childlike. Examples include cute handwriting, certain genres of manga, and characters like Hello Kitty and Pikachu. The cuteness culture, or kawaii aesthetic, has become a prominent aspect of Japanese popular culture, entertainment, clothing, food, toys, personal appearance, and mannerisms … (thanks Wiki!).

So, all of that said, when I discovered a “Kid Kawaii” edit pack containing three great remixes of tunes lifted from Scritti Politti’s classic album Cupid & Psyche 85 (1985) on Bandcamp, I fully expected to learn that the mysterious Kid Kawaii was a producer based in Japan or an artist who fell somewhere under the J-Pop umbrella.

But no, apparently not, it turns out this Kid Kawaii operates out of Chicago, Illinois. Gender unknown, ethnicity unknown, with all attempts to learn more about said producer being thwarted and abandoned after Google kept sending me down rabbit holes that inevitably swarmed my screen with anime, soft pastels, pinks, and all manner of um, cuteness.

But there is this … the most important bit, that edit pack, which contains mixes of ‘Wood Beez’, ‘Absolute’, and ‘Perfect Way’. Released in March of this year, it’s a name-your-price download.

Album Review: Moby - All Visible Objects (2020)

I don’t quite know what to make of Moby’s latest album, All Visible Objects. It’s been touted in some sections of the music press (or corners of the internet) as a somewhat rusty return to his rave/techno roots, but I’m not sure anyone really needs that right now.

I really enjoyed the introspective nature - on the surface, at least - of his 2018 album, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt, but this one leaves me feeling bemused. And frustrated.

That’s no real surprise. I’ve always had a rather fractious relationship with Moby’s music (as documented here). He’s difficult to warm to as an individual, with multiple faces or hard-to-embrace personas being presented to the wider public over the past 30 years. 

What that actually means when it comes to analysing Moby’s music rather depends on your own level of investment in the man and his art. Mine’s been minimal, so I’ll try to focus on the music.

All Visible Objects is the proverbial mixed bag of an album, with a few highs, more lows, a selection of guest vocalists, and the odd (very odd) cover - in this case, a soulless take on Roxy Music’s ‘My Only Love’, featuring regular Moby vocal collaborator Mindy Jones. A version that strips away the despair and emotional poignancy of Bryan Ferry’s original, and pads it out with lush layers of faux-rave, almost euphoric, synth fluff.

Slightly more endearing is the (co-write) collaboration with Linton Kwesi Johnson on ‘Refuge’, which, although quite repetitive, resonates with me more than anything else found on the album. But that might just be because I’m a fan of LKJ’s trademark vocal delivery, and not because it’s an especially strong Moby adaptation.

The rest? Well, there’s some truth to those return-to-rave claims, not least on the lead single, ‘Power is Taken’, which is another collaboration, this time with D. H. Peligro (of Dead Kennedys), and quite possibly the worst thing here due to its unimaginative high bpm techno, its inauthentic anti-“the man” right-on pretentiousness, and the annoying refrain ... “those who hate oppression, must fight against the oppressor. Power is not shared, power is taken” … 

Sure, Moby has as much right as anyone else to be angry at the world, but for whatever reason (pick one), it just rings a little hollow coming from him. In much the same way it does when a mansion-dwelling millionaire hip hop mogul raps about life in the projects and living on the edge (man). We’ve been here before.

And while are there are other big room hands-in-the-air moments that hark back to the halcyon days of ‘Go’ and ‘Move’ without exactly replicating those (now dated) highs, much of this stuff - particularly across the second half of the album - would be equally at home on any of his more ambient works, or even as extended interludes on a commercial blockbuster like Play. 

‘Too Much Change’, one of a handful of tracks featuring primary guest vocalist Apollo Jane, is decent enough, but at something close to ten minutes in length, it might have been improved with a little more judicious editing.

So it turns out that my latest liaison with the music of Moby is once again going to be a short-lived affair. It turns out Everything Was Beautiful was yet another false dawn, and the frustration I’ve endured with a lot of his work over the years resumes on All Visible Objects.

Where Everything Was Beautiful seemingly showcased a flawed middle aged man slowly coming to terms with an ever changing world, All Visible Objects is more about a misguided one stubbornly determined to recreate former glories. And not doing it particularly well.

I was tempted to close with a forlorn attempt at clever wordplay around “one man” and his obsession with “knobs”, but given that all sales proceeds from All Visible Objects are being donated to various charities, I should probably cut Moby some slack, and just say that this one is for resilient fans only.

Album Review: Dead Little Penny - Urge Surfing (2019)

Released in November of 2019, Urge Surfing is the debut album from Auckland three-piece Dead Little Penny, and it probably qualifies as my “most listened to” local release across the first six months of 2020.

Repeat plays have ensured the album has now taken on a warm reaffirming glow of familiarity, and its content hits the spot in terms of my own genre preferences, with equal portions dark post-punk, shoegaze, and synthpop ticking many of the boxes I hold near and dear.

Which is always a good start. In fact, you’d probably have to go back to the Fazerdaze debut of 2017, or The Beths release of a year later, to find a local debut album that has made the same sort of instant impact on me. Without fitting into the exact same genre box, of course.

‘Honeycomb’ is a terrific opener and it sets out the band’s stall for what awaits, which is a collection of strong tunes driven by copious amounts of fuzzy guitar, solid rhythms, and (mostly) Hayley Smith’s excellent vocals - frequently layered to good affect, and sometimes cleverly buried deeper within the mix.

They’re mostly songs about the life, love, and loss, plus there’s commentary about mental health, and a few of the more challenging facets of that thing we call the human condition. It can be quite an intense listen. Which suits me fine.

Nine tracks all up, clocking in at just over half an hour. Beyond ‘Honeycomb’ (below), the hidden treasures include ‘Talk Show Goth’, ‘Dead Together’, and the title track which closes out the album.