STACK #192 Oct 2020

MUSIC REVIEWS

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Melanie C Melanie C

Cosmo's Midnight Yesteryear Besides a testament to how

Melanie Chisolm has spent the years since her life in the Spice World figuring out who she is apart from it, so opening the album with a track called Who I Am seems like an obvious move. But that undersells the fact that doing the whole solo-artist-self-titled- album thing isn’t about separating from the past on this go around, but reconciling it. We’ve been spoiled for pop dance records in a year that feels so distant from a dancefloor, but Melanie C demonstrates that watching the genre’s developments first- hand over the past 30 years is a strength. With unceasing energy, contemporary twists that feel earned, and even heartfelt lyricism among bass-driven thumpers, Melanie C makes the case for the comeback. (Universal) Jake Cleland

restrictions can stoke innovation, the music video for Yesteryear encapsulates Cosmo’s Midnight as a project. A collage of green screen-shot animations and intercut with Zoom brainstorming posits the duo as eager collaborators as well as canny cut-up artists, drawing whatever influences they can find to make something wholly new. Their second album shows more mature songwriting and a stronger sense of self, but nostalgia for the past. Even as they define themselves on their own terms, they’re apprehensive about what they’ve left behind. But if their last album reappropriated the past, here they’re creating the future. As inheritors of the Modular-era mantle, they have nothing to worry about. Memories of yesteryear might make them wistful, but the present is bright. (Sony) Jake Cleland

Ela Minus Acts Of Rebellion Earlier this year Ela Minus performed a live streamed set from her studio space in Bogotá. A unique opportunity to witness the prodigious polymath at work, we see an array of samplers, synths and sequencers, carefully interconnected and covered in small notes. “Bright music for dark times“ reads

one pink post-it. “Be Here“ reads another, a simple call to presence affixed to the mixer, as the artist draws us into an immersive set of techno, electro and pop. This focus, and this fascination with music and its transformative potential, has taken Ela Minus from performing in hardcore bands at the age of 12, to a scholarship at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, to designing and building synthesizers at NewYork's Critter & Guitari. Acts of Rebellion is her debut for the prestigious Domino Records. Throughout the record Ela threads together a rich range of sound, connecting ambient electronic, breakbeat, deep house, techno, and synth pop. It‘s a timely reminder of the euphoria of a dancefloor, matched with reflective, more meditative moments. Ela reflects on “interpersonal connection, political despair, and embracing presence as a first step towards collective care.“ (Domino) SimonWinkler

Japandroids Massey F-cking Hall

Clipping Visions Of Bodies Being Burned An ominous boom opens the second instalment in Clipping’s horrorcore series, an indication that the dangers faced on 2019’s There Existed an Addiction to Blood are still present. The Los Angeles industrial hip hop group utilise horror elements in their production to invoke the terror we absorb on a daily basis, cleverly fusing political commentary with an obvious love of slasher films. ‘ 96 Neve Campbell is a nod to the Scream franchise's leading star, while Eaten Alive is a tribute to the 1976 film of the same name. Tracks are paced with the same dread experienced in the lead-up to a jump scare, culminating in a frenzy of noise that will unsettle the faint of heart. (Sub Pop) Holly Pereira

The premise of Japandroids‘ records is living, loving, and dying in ways larger than life. Blood-curdling howls and brain- scrambling loudness underscore a ritualistic zeal for rousing and sometimes nonsensical lyrics, pointing at a universe greater than our own. So how do they do taking real life and shrinking it down to record size? They wouldn’t be the first to put the ‘mass’ in Massey. Brian King’s guitars reverberate in a chaotic wall of noise, David Prowse’s drums are turned way up, and as it speeds up and slows down it brings all the strength of live performance to bear. It‘s been a minute since you’ve seen a real show. Let this remind you what you’ve been missing. (Pod) Jake Cleland

Machinedrum A View Of U

Cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz once walked around the same city block 11 times. Each time with a different travel companion, from an artist, to a geologist, to a dog. The aim: to see a familiar world with fresh eyes. “Right now, you are missing the vast majority of what is happening around you,“ Horowitz

notes in the resulting book On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes . “You are missing the events unfolding in your body, in the distance, and right in front of you.“ I think about her words when listening to A View Of U . Few producers reward attention as generously as Machinedrum. Each song brims with detail and discovery, enhanced by the contributions of collaborators such as Freddie Gibbs, Mono/Poly, Tigran Hamasyan, Jesse Boykins III, Rochelle Jordan and Tanerélle. There's sun-hued synths, looming 808s, and spectral strings that swirl across the stereo field. The sample slicing and rhythmic programming is densely detailed; as ever, drawing on hip hop, house, drum ‘n‘ bass, rave, footwork, and previously unheard variations. With A View of U we‘re invited to witness the full scope of the producer's panoramic vision. (NinjaTune/Inertia) SimonWinkler

94 OCTOBER 2020

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