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Shimura Curves, Tim Ten Yen, Venetian Snares Reviewed
Posted on 2006.09.27 at 17:17
Shimura Curves – Stronger / Tim Ten Yen – When the Song Applies To You (brainlove)
Some people will tell you there’s not enough space in this world for another Misty’s Big Adventure, the majority will say bring them on and I’d tend to agree with the latter (though at which point I will admit that the charts are full of wannabes which I hate, 100 hundred pretenders to the throne to every king) especially when its done so well as it is hear. It would be unfair to call Tim Ten Yen an out and out replica of Misty’s, it also wouldn’t be true. He is a talent in his own right, file along with My Life Story and Andrew and maybe the Divine Comedy at a push. Whoever he may or may not sound like this is a fantastic single, how you can suddenly find a tacky pop song relating to your very feelings, putting into words what you’ve struggled with.
Shimura Curves on the flipside combine girly pop, shoegazing guitars and some laptop trickery on the delightful Stronger, their myspace page however hints that they are less straightforward than this track would suggest and certainly a band to keep your eyes on (if Not Afraid and Sticky and Brown are anything to go by.)
Venetian Snares – Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardore Pom Poms (Planet Mu)
I’ll admit I don’t really know all that much about Venetian Snares, I know that Venetian Snares is one Aaron Funk who plays every instrument (??) perhaps more impressively on the other album of his that I own, Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett a beautiful album of almost classical music (yes played by the man himself) and drill and bass, not the easiest or most obvious combination you could choose to imagine let alone actually put together. If this is enough to make you think twice you probably shouldn’t look too closely at the cover of the new album, a rather bizarre mechanical “…machine for making cows” the subject of the sample-tastic track Vache, smoothly switching between out and out mayhem and quite patches of tranquillity before and after the storm. Elsewhere Donut, Swindon and the unsurprisingly Nintendo like Pwntendo stand out. If you are a lover of electronica the “disc stuck in its drive” noises will be a joy to your ear, if not you may just wonder if you have a faulty disc and will be glad when the drumless track P arrives. Maybe over a full album it can get a bit much but rarely will you here this done so well, drill, bass, melody and a machine for making cows, could you really want any more?
Electronica
I had in times gone by struggled with the electronica yet today its one of my favourite genres, maybe its called getting old, I mean at what point do you decide that you’d rather hear washes of electronic disturbance and crunchy beats instead of crashing guitars and shouty vocals. In fact most days I’ll find myself listening to Nathan Fake on the way to work, my head to asleep to take anything else in, then returning home following the stress of a long day at the office wanting nothing more than the gentle electronic tones of Plone to caress my ears or the Boards of Canada. Oh the Boards of Canada, perhaps thee band that turned me. I had fallen in love with ROYGBIV on an NME compilation and purchased Music Has the Right to Children and not really got it, however on giving them a second chance with A Beautiful Place Out in The Country it all began to make sense and slowly records on labels such as Warp, FatCat and Leaf started to dominate my record collection, the rest as they say is history.
Ten Electronica Albums To Change Your Life
1) Geogaddi – Boards of Canada (warp)
2) Start a People – Black Moth Super Rainbow (early 70’s gymnastics)
3) Sea Inside Body - Kelpe (dc)
4) Slacker Journal - Bauri (neoouija)
5) Folly – Fortdax (tugboat)
6) Rounds – Four Tet (domino)
7) Stay Down – Two Lone Swordsmen (warp)
8) Die Mitte – Transbeauce (artefact)
9) Drowning in a Sea of Love – Nathan Fake (border community)
10) On the Blink – Wauvenfold (witchita)
Also worth a listen: Gorodisch, com.a, team doyobi, sirconical, rec_overflow, penfold plum, isan, plaid, Venetian snares