Månadsarkiv: mars 2011

This ravaged but ravishing R&B aims for the perfect marriage of ghostly vocals and spectral sonics Hometowns: Berlin, Gothenburg, Manchester. The lineup: Holy Other (music, production). The background: With releases by Balam Acab , oOoOO and How to Dress Well , Tri Angle is shaping up as one of those labels whose stuff you automatically buy, based on the imprint as much as the artist, just like you used to with Postcard and Factory, and perhaps now with Transparent and Cascine . This new producer who calls himself Holy Other pretty much seals the deal for us, making it four essential artists from Tri Angle in less than a year. His real name’s not been revealed yet but that’s OK, because the music is marvellous, and besides, murk and mystery are part of the appeal, if not the process. We’ve seen his – and we have had it confirmed that it’s a ”he”, we’re not being presumptuous – music described as ”ambient goth”, and it’s true, it moves at an ambient pace, and the imagery and overall atmosphere connote the sepulchral and solemn. The sleeve of Holy Other’s debut EP, With U, makes us think of the cover of the Art of Noise 12in of Moments in Love – the 1985 remix, not the 1983 original from Into Battle, the one featuring three shrouded figures bent over in silent prayer – just as the music appears to use as its starting point AON’s aforementioned epic of etiolated electronica. But the cover of With U – is that a shroud, or a ruffled sheet? . It’s an interesting choice for the artwork, because it alludes to the tension in much soul music between the sexual and the spiritual, the sacred and profane. And make no mistake, Holy Other are engaged in a similar project to recontextualise R&B as How to Dress Well and the Weeknd (there’s even a track called BoyziiMen). Now, we realise this is dipping our toes into the week’s hottest water , so we’d just like to say, we loved Jam and Lewis productions for Alexander O’Neal in the 80s just as we’ve got all the time in the world for the latest exponents of that form of hi-tech R&B, but we can appreciate that, for some, contemporary soul, for all the studio gloss, is still too passionate, too damn soulful. We’ve seen one particular track (Timothy Bloom’s Til The End of Time ) recommended this week, but call us terminal miserablists phobic about fleshy reality, we don’t want a soundtrack to adult lovemaking. That’s precisely why How To, Holy Other and the Weeknd – and the Drake album, for that matter – are such a boon: it’s soul deracinated, desexualised, enervated and etherealised, until there is nothing left but production and sorrow. It’s unearthy/unearthly. We should mention some tracks here because they really are quite beautiful, even if we might be in danger of listing synonyms for sumptuous sadness. Yr Love samples Grace Jones’s Pull Up to the Bumper and morphs into a funeral march. Touch is what we dreamed the James Blake album would sound like. Feel Something is Luther Vandross on Venus. Eternal Present is, like everything Holy Other is doing, four minutes of slow-building effulgent gorgeousness. With U and Know Where are great for their titles alone, conflating as they do the language of Prince and shoegaze. Remember those stories about Prince being a Cocteau Twins fan? Well, this is what might have resulted had he worked with Robin Guthrie or Kevin Shields, If I Was Your Girlfriend goes To Here Knows When. Then again, maybe we should just get out more. The buzz: ” How did he arrive at this? ” The truth: Want to know what we play in our boudoir? This devastated disco, this ravaged but ravishing R&B. Most likely to: Achieve the perfect marriage of ghostly vocals and spectral sonics. Least likely to: Be used to soundtrack Madonna’s next marriage . What to buy: The With U EP is released by Tri Angle on 6 June. File next to: Balam Acab, Weeknd, How to Dress Well, James Blake. Links: myspace.com/holyother . Thursday’s new band: Nicolas Jaar. R&B Urban music Electronic music Paul Lester guardian.co.uk Läs mer →