Susumu Yokota - Mother

Mother is the most vocal-based albums by the prolific Japanese electronic musician Susumu Yokota. Featuring a whole legion of guest singers: Nancy Elizabeth, Kaori, Caroline Ross, also members from The Chap and Efterklang. Then again one should not expect a real pop/electronic symbiosis. Mother is in fact very ambient, even loungy in nature. For the more skeptic ear it may sound nice, but wallpaperish background. Which doesn't mean the album lacks interesting tracks. Instrumentation is quite varied for this bedroom electronica. The most unidimensional element may be the vocal frontline. Especially given that the most utilized vocalist is Nancy Elizabeth, who manages to sound the same practically everywhere. The tracks with others are more interesting ("Love Tendrilises", "Reflect Mind", "Meltwater", "Tree Surgeon"). The album closes with the pure piano-ambient piece "Warmth". The sole instrumental here. But what instrumental!

Fennesz - The Black Sea

Austrian electronic musician Fennesz is arguably one of the most famous glitch-tronic artists, who has, combining guitars with laptop, created compositions where one can discern melodic beauty under the layers of clicks and cuts and white noise. It is the re-contextualization of melody under the digitally manipulated noise that made Endless Summer (2001) as one of the undisputed classics of the decade. This opus sounded like a pop album for the experimental electronica crowd. Even though the new album still features guitar as an easily recognizable element, The Black Sea is more ambient in nature. The pieces are longer, three of them over eight minutes. They, particularly the ten-minute title track, seem almost classical in construction. The album closer "Saffron Revolution" sounds quite transcendent. Not exactly the best Fennesz album, but nonetheless Fennesz has flair in his field.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

American avant garde group Animal Collective, who also performed a memorable gig in Tallinn a couple of years ago, is one of the main acts associated with the nascense of the so-called freak-folk trend during the last decade. One can certainly note the folky tendencies on the album Sung Tongs (2004), that indeed presented the bold and crazy animal collective at its most acoustic.

At its most simplified one can say that with its crazy eccentricity, shamanic suggestion and spirited affinity to nature, Animal Collective does embody everything that is both idiosyncratically charming as well as overblown and self-important in freak-folk. Then again, AC is too eclectic to fit in to any stylistic limitations as implied by a "scene". They've covered a wide territory actually, from neo-psychedelia and progressive folk to krautrock and noise-pop.
Merriweather Post Pavilion, the band's ninth studio-album, demonstrates that these post-modern neo-hippies as critical darlings have reached to the phase of electronic dance music. Merriweather Post Pavilion itself is a concert venue in the USA, that the band members have particularly fond memories from the childhood, that they've tried to put into their music here as well. AC recorded this album as a trio (of Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist), given that Deakin took time off from the band.

Does MPP imply that AC has gone techno? It would be a sin to represent this album in such an oversimplified manner. It's true that the band's already hypnosuggestive motorik groove is now fed by drum machines and sequences and thus the myth of AC as archetypal freak-folkies is now apparently shattered for good. Otherwise, Collective has stilistically stayed true to their trademark psychedelic atmospheres and the overabundant multilayered nature of their arrangements. And actually the more prominent electronic elements simply underscore the notion that the trademark AC style and the basic essence of electronica are very compatible.

Certainly, MPP is one of the most accessible AC albums. That the songs longer than six minutes are now gone is but one fact to demonstrate it. The same band, who could put fifteen minute jams on the record earlier on. Some of the tunes, "Brothersport" actually have some kind of a "hit" potential.

Still the style of AC is so dense that it remains challenging to the conventional listener. This is still not easy listening. MPP, in its own way, is even more avant-garde than previous albums. It's a great art and challenge to condense ideas into a shorter format that are all too tempting to be expressed during 20 minutes as is the usual wont of experimental musicians. Animal Collective has risen up to the challenge well and delivered their most subtle record to date.

Max Tundra - Parallax Error Beheads You

Parallax Error Beheads You, third album by British electronic musician Max Tundra, is a fascinating listening. This is more than can be said about most music having pretenses for the title "experimental electronica". Even though it is increasingly more difficult (if not already impossible) to create something truly new in electronic music, it is still possible to have a fresh approach. Tundra, who does not even possess avantgardist pretensions, creates music that I would use the following epithet about it: eccentric electronica. Tundra assumes the role of a British eccentric who combines pop melodies, dance beats and the dense, multilayered nature of IDM to create songs full of childlike playfulness, absurdist juxtapositions and charming naivete. Songs like "Witch Song" could easily be pop hits, but the joke would still be on the mainstream pop listener. Whereas tunes like "Nord Lead Three" and "Entertainment" are crazy stylistic maneuvers while "Until We Die" is an unbelievable synth-prog parody that has got to be heard to be believed.

Juana Molina - Un Dia

Un Dia is fifth album by Argentine singer-songwriter Juana Molina. Musically she combines Argentine folk song elements with modern indie, post-rock and electronic currents. The tone is set by nylon string guitars and multi-layered vocals-as-instrument overdubs. On the new album one also notices a bit of rhythmic complexity. Even though the percussion sounds usually light, here are heard interesting syncopations, the motorik persuasion of electronic dance music and even unusual time signatures. Structurally the music emulates techno, the composition of pieces often gives a lot of computer musicians a run for their money. Except that textures are all organic sounding and in terms of mood the result bears affinity to South-American folk music. Generally this is a masterfully executed indietronica/folk/post-rock album, even if it all sounds a bit introverted. This is a truly mellow album. Not recommended for those who are always in a hurry.

Squarepusher - Just A Souvenir

Tom Jenkinson is clearly one of the most talented electronic musicians in the last two decades. At the age of overabundance in computer generated music it is important to discern true talents from the sea of mediocrity. Jenkinson, known as Squarepusher, has not only created his own unique electronic sound. How many electronic musicians are also gifted composers, have a good melodical sense and can also play not just one, but several conventional instruments?

After the more difficult and challenging albums with a more industrial sound a la Do You Know Squarepusher (2002), Jenkinson has moved towards a more organic and multi-instrumental sound picture. Already the transitional album Ultravisitor (2004) showed Jenkinson playing acoustic drums as much as programming his trademark chaotic beats. It also included interludes for classical guitar. Even more accomplished of a work was Hello Everything (2006) the front cover of which depicted all the instrumental roles as performed by Jenkinson on the record.

Just A Souvenir continues the trend towards the more live- and instrument-oriented sound. For this album Jenkinson found inspiration for a surreal dream involving a live experience, that he is attempting to translate into the music here. It sounds as if Jenkinson rather plays the drums as opposed to programming the beats. Then again his drumming is increasingly more similar to his innovative beats in terms of sound and texture. We can also hear more guitar (and bass), including the classical guitar interludes, a tradition since Ultravisitor. As a composer and a musician Jenkinson has clearly developed a fair bit.

Of course this album presents Squarepusher at his known goodness. "Star Time 2" demonstrates once again that Jenkinson has always composed and selected great songs for album openers. Squarepusher has always referred to jazz-fusion, especially being influenced by Weather Report. As a bassist, Jenkinson has often been considered as Jaco Pastorius of the electronic age and it is unlikely that this album would challenge this notion in any way.

This album, however, is the most jazz-fusionish work from Squarepusher. Jenkinson presents jazz fusion as it would have evolved had it still stressed innovation, instead of overrating virtuosity, the fate that overruled much of jazz-fusion in late 70s. What's more exciting: this album also rocks from time to time. Songs like "A Real Woman", "Planet Gear" and "Tensor In Green" (the latter also featuring some fuzz-bass workout) include a rocking energy few jazz-rockers have captured, but with its chilly surfaces they retain the same atmosphere as his more electronic work.

Just A Souvenir shows Squarepusher as a talented composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who has a signature sound, but whose approach is always interesting and different. Who only plays the music he wants to but gets better at this. This album is Squarepusher's most mature work to date.

Fujiya & Miyagi - Lightbulbs

Krautrock revivalism has not been particularly novel in terms of indie rock context for already a couple of decades. A lot of bands who sound as if they were innovative, have proven that a lot of new is simply old, rediscovered. Therefore, what's left is the possibility of doing the new school kraut-rock as fine and well as possible. After all, within the passionless and insistent motorik groove lies an ideal kind of state. The album closer (clearly a highlight) of the new Fujiya & Miyagi album Lightbulbs called «Hundreds And Thousands» is pure neo-kraut at its best. The result is so impeccable that it makes the rest of the album sound decadent. Even though the krautrock influences are still perceived in spades elsewhere, this line has receded compared to the previous album Transparent Things. It sounds as if Fujiya & Miyagi has played it safe now and produced a fairly typical LCD Soundsystem styled post-post-punk-dance rock record. But it is this idiom that other bands have done better and more interesting. F&M clearly shines more as an honest neo-krautrock group.