It's fantastic how Baxter Dury has improved himself, not only by working on his production value and lyrical richness but also by really juxtaposing his persona in a new, old environment. I always love it when artists really embody a persona, an exagurated version of their own character to speak so, this works especially well with solo artists who want to star front and center in a way that their character would do. One song in this album is called slumlord, and maybe Baxter is best to be ... read more

Can sound be positively ominous whilst still feeling like a heavy drag of thunder? The album Raya from a fantastic, Belgian band Pothamus does exactly this and spares no efforts. It stretches and twists it's own hypnothic atmosphere while under an intense pressure and it does so all while providing deep rooted instrumentals that all sound like background elements at the same time. Raya may not have a filled in center but instead spins around one like a dreary maelstrom.

Calling it soft ... read more

They just had to have proof that if you'd split Steely Dan in half you'd still have Steely Dan. All jokes aside, Donald Fagen can carry a good album on himself but it lacks the richness that his companion, Walter Becker, provides. Still, it's a cigarette burner album that is more than welcome on the background of my life, with it's mellow midnight atmosphere that falls somewhere between very fun and very steady compositions. It may not have the wilder, more expressionistic notions that I'd ... read more

This is the kind of material I'd expect from a third rate DJ that spins discs at his nephews bar mitzvah's after party. And I would still slam the guy as above this event. In fact, I'd rather have an empty DJ set than Marshmallow's joytime to fill out a dance hall. I still hear these kinds of lame beats at some generic parties and no matter how drunk or sober I am, I always think: who can even get off on this kind of music. It's like trying to get aroused by watching paint dry.

In short, I ... read more

Sometimes you gotta love the one dimensionality of old country music. A picture perfect image from hollering old cowboy music is that of your next door clean cowboy Mr. Hank Williams. He may just perform highly traditional country that has become a relic of a lost past but he is sometimes highly eccentric in singing mannerisms. I don't rate this very highly because I don't enjoy this highly but I do rate this three quarters of perfect because it is god damned great at what it does.

Maybe I ... read more

Some albums start with their energy a couple of layers above "the level", some start with their energy eight feet down as if dragged through bleached experimentation. I would classify DNA on DNA as far more the latter than the former. The texture of the album is scratched to start with and the album sabotages itself through many intentional misfits. It tries so hard to be more than routine but ultimately accidentaly becomes what it fears.

And that's rare for experimental music, ... read more

Glassworks is one of the most gratifying and delectable pieces of music I've ever heard, it's a beauty. The title might be more than just a joke relating to our composer , in my eyes the album itself truly is a glasswork : transparent , pure and truly fragile. One crack or ripple in glasswork and it's ruined -- it never does. That might be the obsession and sophistication that fills this music, with this endurance comes a sense of gravity and passion.
It might be that the only thing Phillip ... read more

One of the purely sunniest hiphop albums of all time, conceived in the haydays of the genre - it supports on charming and dated clichés and tropes we still see return today as if it's a nostalgic milestone of the genre. It really shines in its sheer optimism (which is frankly rare for rap) and well crafted simplicity. It reminds me of the kind of rap they'd feature in sunday morning programs on the old cartoon network or nickelodeon, it may just be as breezy as that. We smell the brink ... read more

One of my favorite literary archetypes was always "the doomed romantic". One who is holding onto his youthful idealism and slowly getting pressure of the whole spectrum that is reality - it's a bitter truth that deconstructed logic always catches up with escapism. This trope has never been personified better than with the massively talented singer songwriter Nick Drake, who had all the right cards dealt in his hand except for much needed luck. He died at age 26, one year too early to ... read more

Aphex Twin always makes music that travels through loopholes to make ends meet and ends up like systematic nonsense of odd sorts. It's hard for me to review albums of them as they are always unique but follow the same criteria why they are unique, so why do I use drukQs? It might just be because I can recognize the musical abilities of Twin the best here, where they have several more menacing and better albums - they are a bit more incomprehensible for me. If any album of them is "Aphex ... read more

This music is steel cold. The name of the album is that of the band. Is it very probably a self portrait in the form of an album. The album's greatest strenght is also it's greatest flaw -- it likes to exploit and showcase from it's own darkest realm. It is not a pleasant listen, in fact it is a very ominous one that feels devilish in a modern way and very consciously barely human. The only thing that bars it from that description is the vulnerable female voice -- one that makes me picture a ... read more

I remember december being far colder than this. Or maybe I'm just confusing it with that quiet month where each day, there is less and less light or the month we use Christmas to lighten up the mood. I associate december (especially historically) with the real start of hardship, where we have to try that little extra bit to stay warm and social. But there is also the beauty of looking out of a window near the end of the year, seeing naked trees with branches bearing absent leaves, a somber grey ... read more

Is this what ADHD sounds like? One subject jumping to the next within seconds and forgetting the former while already thinking of the latter? Orange is pure high concept garage punk that never loses its charming non-professionality and raw rock style. The album is pure unadulterated filler with about four landmarks to hook some memorability. It drags a lot of styles in it's mix, but whatever it introduces, Orange doesn't let it be its own style. When hints of blues or jazz are introduced, it ... read more

I threaten to think that I don't really love this album. The unjust explanation would be that it's just too plain 'poppy', but that is a pretty lame excuse if you're reviewing an album of such technical excellence as Purple Rain. It's fair of me to say first that I've never really liked Prince as a musical character to begin with, he's a character of jesterful excess in my belief and excess is best used when either adressed or plain ignored in a fitting situation. It's a celebration of it's own ... read more

Calling "The Velvet Underground & Nico" a classic or even an underground classic feels entirely wrong. Its age , reputation and recognition within the music industry are undeniable but it all feels so fresh and timeless (an overused word). For me the "days of ladies and gentlemen" ended in 1967 and this album could most accurately prove that. No misconceptions : this album is uncovered all about drug abuse , prostitution , kinks and all the stuff that would makes Travis ... read more

Stay with me is - in essence - an album of hidden pain and lost innocence. It paints a picture for every sad and gloomy story that it tells in fascinating simplicity. Much of this ado is to be credited solely to the immense vocal talents of my favorite musical Billie: Billie Holiday. She roots this album deep in a foggy saloon where she sings with a great dose of perfectionated nonchalance just because she knows how much talent she has.

Holiday's rhtythm is as good as a french chansonette ... read more

Ahh Björk, a true alien even among musicians. Even this debut album (although not really her debut) seems made to be an underground movement firestarter -- It's agressively unique and atypical and after all it still remains some kind of pop music. I'm quite fond of Björk but I feel like she in her debut, even though it sounds highly professional, had to have a bit better footing to build on. The whole album is like an oversized darkly confusing experience from the point of view of an ... read more

Where is this album heading? What is it building up to? Why does it seems to take detours? Loveless is an endlessly creative experimental album that for me seems to deflate more air than it really generates. It's holy unique in sound design and mixing and obviously a lot of effort went into the production of this album but the album only seems to measure itself in stages of disorientation and distortion. It certainly evokes something yes -- something out of a foggy, large dancehall on a slow ... read more

Is the typography on this cover not alike that of "The Godfather"? It certainly is, they must've been pretty confident in this album then. With good reason, I grant them that this is one of those non annoying time capsules of the 90s. It's a different breed of rap that we expect than that of today, I'd say much oldschool rap aims to be either ridiculously smooth or as coarse as Joe Cocker. The air of The Score breezes toward the clean, smooth goal and with great success. It exudes ... read more

An absolute explosive thrill! The friction in Frances the mute, my first album from The Mars Volta is palpable and grinds me to the bone with all it's unpredictable and bombastic schtick! I usually find that a "throw everything you got and see what sticks" attitude doesn't fare too well in music because there are nearly always going to be jarring bolts in it's mechanics. Frances the Mute follows this approach to an extent but why it works for me is that it doesn't have a flat base to ... read more