Niklas Pivic's reviews

Showing 30 reviews
  • by

    4/5 stars

    This album shows that Jamie xx is, still, a 90s bitch. In a very good way. Where his music could easily veer into pastiche and caricature, he's molded the past into something precious and sweet.

    The result is a dancey electronic album with a lot of bounce. Intro song 'Wanna' touches on what The xx made on their latest album, and just jump a couple of tracks to 'Baddy On The Floor', a Basement Jaxx-wafting banger that's pure fun.

    Every song feels like Jamie xx loves music and wants to convey that feeling through creation. Check out the soulful 'Dafodil', where the human voice gets looped and treated to a simple beat and occational reverb and garage-y piano; this is… More

  • by

    2.5/5 stars

    I love Rakim's work with Eric B. I love parts of what he did solo, until now.

    This album consists of:

    • God worship

    • Featured artists worshipping Rakim

    • Rakim rapping some mathematics and life stuff

    • Featured artists rapping about b!tches, money, clothes

  • by

    4/5 stars

    Jon Spencer, nearly 60 years of age, teams up with the young rhythm section from The Bobby Lees: the results are rock blues that kind of matches what Spencer made with the Blues Explosion. This is vital, mature, yet impressively free blues that revitalises the spirit.

    Eight songs in nineteen minutes? You got it. I'd love to hear more from this trio.

  • by

    4/5 stars

    My modus regarding Merzbow:

    1. I think about listening to a Merzbow record. (Side note: I've never re-listened to a Merzbow album.)

    2. I think 'Holy shit, I hope this album isn't high-pitched.'

    3. I start the album, volume very low.

    4. Having ensured that my hearing won't be damaged, I start listening.

    5. Around five minutes into the first track, I nearly always think 'Why did I start listening to Merzbow?' and also 'There's no other artist who's really like Merzbow.' and 'Holy shit, has he released around 600 albums, singles, and collabs?' and 'I wonder if he ever listens to his old albums. Why should he? Fuck it.'

    6. After half an hour, I wonder whether I'm falling to… More

  • by

    4/5 stars

    This is a grand experimental album made by a highly inventive and evocative musician, mainly drummer. This is the kind of experimental instrumentals you'd expect to be released on Drag City or similar labels.

    Polyrhythmic drumming abounds with simple and dissonant electric-guitar notes. This is some provocative and great shit and I lap it up, simple as that.

  • by

    3/5 stars

    A very nice and plain noise record: it felt like what I'd imagine holding fans to your ears while falling through air would feel like.

    The sounds were not high-pitched (à la Merzbow) but very mid-levelled; this made for nearly an ambient listening experience.

  • by

    4/5 stars

    To think this album was made in 1996 is incredible; it feels like an ambient->backroom at a techno club->ambient house...wow. It's a great album to listen to.

  • by

    4/5 stars

    This is a really fun band. They're funny, too.

    I really dig their first album, Pure Particles, which was a lot of fun in a brief period of time. Now they've signed with Sub Pop, the record label, which hasn't really changed their music or seemingly their fun perspective. Songs are about the import of proper alcohol quality and making a really pop song; there's a lot of ironic sensibilities strewn across the album.

    Don't miss this lot. Very lovely melodies, songwriting, and collaborative song. Power pop meets twee indie.

  • by

    4.5/5 stars

    For me, it's hard to not see this album as an elevation for a survivor of sorts. Cave's two sons have died and I can't understand the depths of those sorrows; I've experienced visceral and all-consuming sorrow in different ways, but I feel—and I may very well be wrong about this—that Cave's spiritual sides have grown beyond that of the christian concept of God, into something that I identify as unitarian universalist.

    The first half of the album uses Cave's voice as that of a gospel preacher, rhythmically and repetitively, throwing his audience into a trance. The addition of a gospel choir in a few places doesn't hurt.

    I dig how the drums sound as though the mics… More

  • by

    4/5 stars

    This is an album that, to paraphrase Jon Hopkins, just came about without intellectual process. While I doubt that somewhat—Hopkins is a masterful audio engineer and a great composer, and those qualities aren't solely attained as gifts from above/below—this is both a psychedelic and very warming album, at least to myself. There are a lot of analogue feel to the album.

    This music reminds me of the most sacral and ambient music made by the wonderful Popol Vuh. Also, I find this album to be a great step from Hopkins's last album, Music for Psychedelic Therapy.

  • by

    4.5/5 stars

    This may sound contrite, but I'll say it anyway: the unreleased Steve Albini version of this album, recorded in 1997, is excellent. A sheer power-pop masterpiece. Some of the songs just bleed fun and love for music. Every single bit is lovely.

    On the "Rockline 2003" show, someone called in and asked the band for the history behind this disc, and Bun E. Carlos gave the explanation. The "In Color" album was produced by Tom Werman, but the band always felt that Werman screwed up the album. "He made it safe for radio, but the album sounds like it was done in a cardboard box." So, in 1997, they were in the studio hanging around with Steve Albini and had… More

  • by

    3/5 stars

    This is actually a very listenable album, considering how Merzbow usually includes a lot of high-pitched treble-laden noise. Au contraire, this is low-rumbling stuff (at least during the first 20 minutes); sounds made me feel as though massive ice-blocks were dragged all around me. In a good way, actually.

    I had no problems working to this music!

  • by

    4.5/5 stars

    I wrote this a couple of weeks after the album was released:


    Alvvays' third album is their best yet.

    In a couple of weeks, I've played this album over twenty times. Yeah. It's that good.

    Alvvays don't shy away from their influences—The Smiths, shoegaze stuff, twee indie bands—but they bring great songs to the table, songs with odd chord changes, loads of melodies, no show–offy shit but rather a communal sense of wanting to do whatever makes the best song, and more melodies. I love the fact that they're using two different singers. And synths. Reliable drums. Great guitar sounds and riffs. This is some fun and great shit. I feel that Alvvays have feared nothing while… More

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