Owen Writes

Freeelance journalist, C.O.B.

[owenmyers]

Saint Etienne - 'Words And Music by Saint Etienne' Review

If you've not got the gist from the artwork's musical street map, the opening track of Saint Etienne's ninth album sets out their MO: "I used Top of the Pops as my world atlas". Saint Etienne make music about music, and DJ crushes and Top 40 listening rituals have a seductive pathos straight outta Larkin. Here they've upped the pop stakes, and the shimmery 'Popular' could be an Aphrodite standout, while 'Tonight' is a Xenomania disco ballad to rival Annie/Aloud. The album shines with "love in digital stereo", as Sarah Cracknell intones on the life-giving 'I've Got Your Music', and like all albums that get stuck in your heart, you feel it knows your history better than yourself. 

5/5

Review originally for Attitude, May 2012.

[owenmyers]

Always Check The Label: SOFTWARE

Named after a band on Klaus Schulze’s label Innovative Communications, Software founders Daniel “Oneohtrix Point Never” Lopatin and Joel “Airbird” Ford’s aim is to “establish a Stax-style label for electronic music”.

First up is the latest record from Megafortress, who makes noodly falsetto jams that Lopatin describes as “a by-product of his overall metamorphosis towards a secular spiritual dimension.” Wherever that may be, back here on Earth the songs glitter with the unnerving beauty of castrati on acid. This year’s releases also include “fantasy hip hop” from Napolian and the debut EP from Harmonizer, whose ambient vibings sound like denizens of The Crystal Maze trying to figure out who killed Laura Palmer. 

Software also puts out the zine Cool Drool, “to expose folks to more or less obscure artists whose work should be noticed, as well as being a fundraiser for the International Red Cross.” Musical and social philanthropy? Are there any bases they don’t have locked down? “We just hope to continue keeping it real”, says Ford. “Can’t rep something hard unless you truly believe it.”  

Label profile originally for Dazed and Confused, April 2012. Check out Napolian's exclusive mix for Dazed here. 

[owenmyers]

K-POPULAR: An Introduction to K-Pop

BEAST

In London Brixton academy, a 70/30 girls-to-gays split are screaming louder for K-pop boyband BEAST than I've ever heard in my life. And I went to see Busted film a 2004 MTV special. With hair GHD'd within an inch of its life, the six-piece bodypop onto the stage to their Timbaland-ish pop anthem 'Shock' wearing coordinated popped-collars that look suspiciously like the work of Tina Knowles' thimble. "It's just amazing!" gasps Tobi, a Cornish 18-year old in the front row with neon eyeliner running down his face. "I've been waiting for this moment for years! I like English music too, but K-pop is so fun and colourful." Do you prefer Korean boys as well? "Yeah!" he grins. "I mean, have you seen Onew from Shinee?"

Shinee

But being a doll-faced heartthrob isn't enough alone to spawn a worldwide K-pop phenomenon - although boybands Shinee and BEAST's penchant for homoerotic antics on talkshows is enough to fill its own FMForums messageboard. Last year, American chart company Billboard implemented the K-Pop Hot 100 to recognise the sales and influence of K-pop in the US, and industry bible SPIN placed Hyuna's infectious, dubstep-infused 'Bubble Pop!' ahead of Britney and Nicki in its Best Pop Tracks of 2011 chart. In the words of Peter Robinson of Popjustice.com, 'Bubble Pop!' was a real "everyone else might as well pack up and go home" moment. 

Hyuna

If you keep finding yourself missing what pop 'used to be like', look no further. K-pop has an unabashed shininess that hasn't been seen since the days of Girl Thing and Lolly, with bright shiny pop tunes shamelessly influenced by mainstream pop trends. The CGI-fuelled videos are as integral to the package as the 'Erotica'-era rumpathons were to Madonna: in Lee Hyori's Gaga-baiting 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' she emerges from a spaceship with ladies-in-waiting dressed as Mother Monster (meow!); 2NE1's 'I Am The Best' sees them smash their own platinum discs and wield AK-47s with devil-horn hair sculpture; in 'Oh!'  Girls' Generation face-off with 'Not Such A Innocent Girl' evil twins from a parallel universe. 

2NE1

This year, K-pop is doing a 'Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' and getting an Americanized makeover. Wil.I.Am's producing 2NE1's English-language album, Shinee are touring worldwide, and Wonder Girls look set for US invasion with a film premiere on Teen Nick. "It's popularity couldn't exist without the internet", confirms Tobi back at the concert. "I've made so many friends from the K-pop forums. The world just needs to catch up!"

An edited version of this feature appeared in Attitude, April 2011.

[owenmyers]

Hunx - 'Hairdresser Blues' Review

Last we heard from Hunx, "Brylcreem at the ready" meant something quite different, but for his third album Seth Bogart's ditched the puns and the Punx. His Girl Groups-meets-Go-Go's 'Hairdresser Pop' is a still a chirpy and charming riot, from the title track's 'Beauty School Drop Out'-esque sherbet strop to the infectious 'Always Forever' which could give Madonna's cheerleader chanting a run for its money.

4/5

Review originally from Attitude, April 2012. 

[owenmyers]

Introducing: Woman E

Woman E? Who's that then?

Actually there's two of them, a woman called Ria Berlin and a man called OoverMatic. 

I've seen that movie! Wasn't the tagline Mouth Like An Oov…

Give over. Actually, the duo take their name from the infamous dominatrix who became a tabloid sensation in 2008 after an affair with Formula One boss Max Mosley.

Don't tell me, it's a 'comment on celebrity culture.' Any songs about Britney's shaved head?

No. 

What are we talking then?

They make the kind of shiny electropop that makes 'Your Disco Needs You' look like a work of Calvinist restraint. 'Few and Far Between' is a colourful synth banger, while new single 'Desire' has a 90s rave o'clock chorus built around a refrain about unrequited love. It's all a bit "I'm in the corner, watching you kiss her."

*Sniff*

Oh honey, I will survive. Plus, the Fashions! Oover used to be the musical director for Comme Des Garçons, and it shows. In the video for 'Desire', Ria Berlin struts down a catwalk and explores some 'grimy alleys' wearing red PVC and a bird of paradise on her head. 

Gaga-oo-la-la!

But music-wise 'Desire' is more like early Scissor Sisters meets Livin' Joy, with  KY oozing from its broken heart. When asked to sum up their sound, Ria and Oover describe it as "decadence and decay" or "melancholy disco."

…and in English?

Really, they're just an amazing pop band. 

Single 'Desire' is out now, with an album to follow later this year.

Feature originally from Attitude, April 2012.

[owenmyers]

Ones To Watch: Trailer Trash Tracys

Trailer Tracy Tracys: questionable name, amazing songs. 'I like that everyone thinks it's a shit name!' laughs guitarist Jimmy-Lee of having a band name that could just as easily be a hard-ass girl gang from Russ Meyer's imagination or an after-hours bar in Vauxhall. 'It's silly, it's fun, and that's what pop culture's about - being accessible to everyone.'

He may as well be talking about TTT's mesmeric debut album 'Ester', a dose of reverb-heavy psych-pop that was last seen somewhere around Twin Peaks, Washington. With its luxe cavernous layers you could easily get lost in the Diazepam groove, but with Suzanne's sensual Gothenburg-bred vocals and cooing harmonies the melodies shine brightly through the millefeuille. 

'Our drummer Dayo played our record to his mum and she said it sounded like psychedelic ABBA!' smiles Jimmy, clearly chuffed at the inadvertent praise. 'We love Blondie and Burt Bacharach, as well as more experimental stuff like prog or Steve Reich. Marrying both is a difficult thing.'

These unlikely bedfellows come together best in the stunning 'Candy Girl', a TASCAM cassette-recorded cinematic wonder that was the product of Jimmy and Suzanne's first band practice. 'I had this weird bassline, a Smashing Pumpkins guitar riff and then I was listening to 60s Girl Groups,' says Jimmy. 'I put them together and it just fitted.' Suzanne sings '11 o clock and my heartbeat stops' with the all the haunting nonchalance of the Queen of Deadpan, Nico (minus the fear that she'd eat you alive). 

If it all feels naggingly askew, then it's partly explained by the band's habit of tuning their instruments to the traditional Eastern 'solfeggio scale'. Obscurist, moi? 'We named the album after a Swedish short film about a mocked overweight woman going swimming,' says Jimmy. 'When you're in the pool your senses can be cut off in a certain way, and we liked the idea of listening to our album as escapism.'

Come on in, the water's wonderful.

Feature originally for Clash, February 2012

[owenmyers]

Perfume Genius - 'Put Your Back N 2 It' Review

Though the title might make Sir Mix-A-Lot proud, there's more to Perfume Genius' second album than The Joy of Bumming (though there's plenty of that too). With simmering-under beats and a lick of piano, Mike Hadreas crafts the shady gay everyday into aching jewel-like songs. The teen suicide lament '17' tugs on heartstrings you didn't know were there, and on the glisteningly sensual title track you can practically taste the sweat. His quavering voice is mesmerising on 'Hood', a masterly epic-in-two-minutes where crashing cymbals accompany the reprimand "you would never call me baby if you knew the truth." A unique and revelatory album of rare poetry and pathos. 

4.5/5

Review for Attitude, March 2012.

[owenmyers]

Introducing: Miracle

*Cilla voice* What's your name and where d'ya come from?

Daniel and Steve used to play in metal bands with names like Sunn0))) and Aethenor, but they got a tired of playing one bone-crushing note for two hours and decided they wanted to be pop stars.

We're not talking Evanescence?

Think more like the brooding synth-pop of Soft Cell, or a darker-hearted Hurts. Big stadium-sized pop melodramas with house beats and synth baselines. Like their genres, they're also not afraid of mixing their metaphors (sample lyric: 'No mortal lips are worthy of this kiss')

Blimey.

Yes. The video for 'Good Love' is a weird 80s-does pre-Raphaelite hi-gloss affair. Singer Daniel cries blood and levitates a shrouded lady, and there's also plenty-o-Brylcreem and billowing chiffon.

Like Channel 5 in the 90s?

I doubt they'd have too much problem with that comparison. For their London single launch they performed on a light-up dancefloor, after all. Very Disco 2000.

Anyway, back to the music.

New single 'Fall Into Night' is the kind of disco heartbreak anti-anthem that everyone wished Rebecca Ferguson had come out with, with a soaring synth-led chorus about walking through fire, a glitchy Miraclestep™ breakdown and lots of pulsating quasar synths to keep everyone on their toes. Vocoders aplenty too. 

'Do you belieee-heevee in life after love?'

Just listen to the record already.

'Introducing' feature originally published in Attitude, March 2012.

[owenmyers]

Young Magic Interview and Mixtape (Dazed Digital)

If 'World Music' didn't bring to mind an image of smug WOMAD festival-goers, it's the description you'd use for Young Magic. Their mesmerising debut LP 'Melt' is the fruit of frontman Isaac Emmanel's travels through Mexico and Europe - a fusion of ambient psychscapes, West African rhythms and bloopy Scandinavian-style indiepop on album highlight 'You With Air'. Now based in New York alongside fellow band members Michael and Melati, Isaac answered our quickfire questions as they release their album and made Dazed Digital a 'sonic scrapbook' (that's a mixtape to you and me).

WHAT'S...

...Your secret talent?

Finger skateboarding 

...Your worst vice?

Sleepwalkin’. And by that I mean never really sleeping. 

...The movie you wish everyone knew about?

The Color Of Pomegranates. 

...Your party trick?

Smokebombin’. Taking it downtown. 

...Your favourite record to psych-out to?

Tago Mago. Too many memories.  

...Your favourite pair of shoes?

I like the time when the shoes come off. Always leads to a good thing. 

...Your favourite website?

http://visualmelt.com

...Your worst fashion secret?

Parachute pants. 

The best thing about where you're from?

The beaches, the rainforest and Yongs. 

The best party you've ever been to?

I went to a party in a hole once in Neukölln. Actually it was more of a sewer/bomb shelter. 

...Your animal spirit?

Dolphin Chameleon mash 

...The best hairstyle?

Long on a glowing face.

...Your dream piece of band merch, given an unlimited budget?

Imagine Yayoi Kusama’s infinity room. Maybe a similar instillation.. except as an interactive phenomenon to be experienced one person at a time. You step into a pitch dark room with thousands of glowing stars. As you move through the space, your body triggers audio samples from signals emitted from the stars in the room. One sample or sound from the LP is dedicated to each of the hundreds of lights and respective signals, so as you move through the space they trigger sound and simultaneously create a piece of music that is entirely your own, shaped and performed. This experience is amplified and recorded, pressed to vinyl and sent to the participants home address one month later. Simple really. 

...At the top of your shit list?

DJ requests from coked out kids. 

...Are you listening to now?

Teebs - Collections 01

How would you describe your work?

Exploring. We hope you enjoy this collection of sounds. The mix is a definite headphone journey, downtown.

Listen to Young Magic - 'Maps' Mixtape at Dazed Digital.

[owenmyers]

Boy Friend: Mariah-Loving Disney Fans Create Chillpop

Boy Friend are essentially a pop band in wolf's clothing - one that screws with the rules. Austin natives and lifelong best buds Christa Palazzolo and Sarah Brown formed the band when it all went tits-up with their previous group Sleep ∞ Over. 'We got along horribly and it got really ugly, but we learned a lot,' says Christa, who now tackles lead vocal and songwriting duties in Boy Friend. 'For this record we did a lot of experimenting with song structure, mostly inspired by the idea of a path to some sort of enlightenment.'

Boy Friend's album 'Egyptian Wrinkle' is shaping up to be one of the debuts of 2012. On a background listen it's a gorgeous Cocteaus-tinged dreamscape, but with headphones its buried R&B-influenced harmonies come alive. 'We envisioned a good chunk of the songs on our album as a sort of sci-fi sound track,' says the duo's guitarist Sarah. 

Current single 'Lovedropper' isn't quite that, but its brooding post-break up vibe and skittering hip-hop handclaps are the closet thing to a Bratmobile/The-Dream collaboration you're ever likely to hear. 'I've always been heavily inspired by strong female voices,' says Christa. 'We wanted to make 'Lovedropper' especially poppy to counteract the dark lyrics.'  

With their slowed, sensual take on ABBA's 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' doing the blog rounds now, Boy Friend aren't in any danger of losing their knack for melody that singles them out from their chillwave contemporaries. 'Anyone who says they aren't influenced by pop music is a liar', says Sarah. 'Mariah Carey's 'My All' is my all-time favourite pop song. Disney movies are amazing too. We do an Aladdin duet at every karaoke night!' 

This feature originally appeared in the February 2012 issue of Dazed and Confused.

[owenmyers]

SFV Acid: Valley Boy Representing for the Valley Girls

Raised in LA's San Fernando Valley on a diet of 'Charles Manson, porn and Valley Girls', Zane Reynolds' looped psych-house is the sum of its influences and then some. 'I just want to represent the valley', he shrugs of his assumed name. With hallucinogenic assistance? He claims it's 'Acid' as in 'House' rather than 'Brian Wilson', but his textured, pared-down beats suggest that he's not adverse to taking a walk down Melrose Avenue buzzed off his nut.

SFV Acid's giddy take on house music is like US celebrity culture in the wake of the economic crash: post-Paris Hilton, everything's fair game. The melancholic 'Library' has an analogue Delia Derbyshire-ish zing! to counteract its Chicago house pound, while if there was a way to commit double-dropping to 8-track it would probably sound something like the looped keyboard riff and squelchy bass of 'Wet Devil'. 'He has such a dry, witty take on acid', says Amanda Brown, (a.k.a. LA Vampires) who just put out SFV Acid's EP 'Grown' on 100% Silk. 'I immediately loved the sound - it's a unique and wholly contemporary perspective.'

Alongside lining up two other EPs for 2012 (and dreaming of a video directed by Angelene The Billboard Queen), Zane's also made a tribal, minimal mix called 'Persian Runway' for cult culture blog DiS Magazine. So what fashion show would your music soundtrack? 'I'd hope for it'd be some regular J.Crew/Ed Hardy cool clothes runway,' Zane laughs. 'My music backing that stuff would be great!'

An edit of this feature appeared in the February 2012 issue of Dazed and Confused.

[owenmyers]

Tri-Angle Records Showcase Review

Balam Acab

Tri-Angle believers gather tonight as snow blankets London, brought to the one thousand capacity Dalston warehouse by a shared reverence for the label's screwed, boundary-pushing beats. Tonight's show marks an internet phenomenon made real for a label with a greater web-investment than most: their first release, Balam Acab's 'See Birds EP', was constructed using web-culled samples, not to mention their zip-file Lindsay Lohan covers EP with witty, spliced contributions from Laurel Halo and Oneohtrix Point Never. Megabytes thump through the ventricles of Tri-Angle's polygon heart, and in between songs tonight fans make triangle signs with thumb and index fingers to confirm their devotion. As the label's manifesto goes: “Pop is religion.”

In a stage-time switcheroo, headliners Balam Acab are the first to take to the scaffold tonight, a pair of smiling New Yorkers against a backdrop of hyper-real skyscapes, interlocked Russian doll-style. Tonight, the pop hooks shine out from the studio-version haze: 'Apart' sounds like a The-Dream production stretched to 60bpm, with R&B-infused beats and fuzzy rainforest clacks offsetting Morgan Elizabeth's Arabian Nights chanteuserie. She's the stealth pop front woman here, with vocals more fully-fleshed than on 2011's 'Wander/Wonder' album as she hip-sways and wishes a fan happy birthday as the crowd pump their hands like we're at a Clipse concert.

A grainy monochrome film of the New York subway appears on screen charting a claustrophobic journey through the underground, with oOoOO (aka San Francisco's Dexter Greenspan) appearing on stage before it gets too 'Irreversible'. He drops beats harder than Balam Acab, but with Butterclock's R&B vocals the pop hooks are more striaght-up too. New single 'NoWayBack' is a bassy dreampop jitter, with Butterclock's faux-winsome reverbed vocals echoing through the warehouse space amidst oOoOO's blissed-out chimes. 2010's 'Hearts' sounds extra haunting, a glitchy Italo twinkle on record that tonight begs for interpretive dance-offs or Butterclock's own hair-tousled swagger.

And then, at some point around The Haxan Clock spinning Lil' Wayne to a pitch-black room of bump 'n' grinding gig-goers, Hackney Downs Studios turns into a rave. Holy Other stands aloft over the decks in a Dementor-like hood (custom-made by London stylist Helen Rendell), illuminated by strobes flashing to his thigh-wobbling housey beats. Cigarette smog fills the air as the crowd rip off layers to dance, crazed and ignoring the water (sweat?) dripping from the ceiling, and when the pounding bass of 'With U' kicks in with its Robert Miles-esque piano hook we're moving in hands-aloft euphoria. It's the holy grail of live shows - that life-giving moment where music and the crowd are in perfect sync.

There are technical issues tonight, like when the sound momentarily cuts during Evian Christ's DJ set, but it's fundamentally small-fry. When Tri-Angle started in 2010, it was lumped in with Witch House (a joke genre, never very funny to start with), but tonight London experiences the label not as a dictum of sound, but a gesture towards sonic possibilities. Essentially, Balam Acab, oOoOO and Holy Other don't sound like anything else. And when others mess up - like when a techie accidentally bathes Balam Acab's Morgan in a neon Sanyo logo - they have the grace to laugh it off.

[owenmyers]

THRILL LOVE: FEBRUARY MIXTAPE

Apropos of nothing, I made an amazing mixtape of tween pop, RnB and an Orchestral Hit-heavy remix.

[owenmyers]

14th - 'Take Me There'

A post-dub anti-anthem that's the tear-stained wait for the Night Bus home in 4 minutes. Tracey Duodu's voice is the cincher, deeper-mining than on last single 'Hide Yourself' and heart-wrenching on the Middle 8's "you're what I've been searching for". This is where 90's disco-soul grows up, but not before it's chopped'n'screwed in a salad spinner.

Single review from Music Week (02/02/12).

[owenmyers]

NOT A LANA DEL REY REVIEW

Charli XCX Live Review

KOKO, 24/01/2012

Outside MTV's Brand New showcase in Camden, a crowd of music fans are doing what can only be described as "clucking". They scurry around looking concerned, with abrupt high-pitched exchanges and urgent hunches over their iPhones. At first you may think something awful has happened, and then you see a hastily-printed sign and realise it's worse: "Lana Del Rey is unable to perform tonight due to illness."

After her critical panning post-Saturday Night Live performance it's no wonder that Lana's not quite feeling herself. Her billing tonight was a strange fit, slotted in between Charli XCX's goth-pop and The Maccabees' riffy dreamscapes at KOKO, especially given that she could easily fill the 2000 capacity venue herself.

Moving into Lana's slot tonight is the formidable Charli XCX, a pop princess at nineteen years old with big hair and bigger tunes. Once styled as a Grindie Princess (see her 2008 single '!Franchesckaar!'), Miss XCX has now gone alt-pop with new material devised with Diplo, producer Ariel Rechtshaid and Swedish mastermind Patrik Berger. She motors onto the stage like she owns it, looking like Princess Jasmine grew up in a Hackney warehouse, wearing a loose black crop-top and glittery high-waist pantaloons.

Tonight she delivers a set of slick pop bolstered by crunching synths, with her voice veering from a chatter-stopping full belt to measured raps that are more The xx than the Lady Sov bolshiness of Charli's early material. On the mesmerising opener 'Stay Away' the full-throttled chorus is backed with haunting vocoders and the unnerving lyrics of the spoken-word breakdown: “Pulled on the chains/Licking up the blood yeah I made this decision.”

The set highlight is the pulsating, tubular bells-gone-haywire 'Nuclear Seasons', a huge pop tune with crashing bass drums and a fuzzy Italo twinkle. She sways to the song with a belly-dancer's confidence, tossing her head with mock-naïveté during the chorus' “oh oh oh, oh oh oh” her pentagram pendant swinging from her neck. On the pulsating 'Mess' she fist-pumps into the audience with trousers billowing around her legs like a ringside boxer raised on electro-pop. 

As her set finishes I hear a couple talking behind me: "She's not pop really though, is she? More like These New Puritans." They're wrong, but understandably so. Charli XCX is a pop star as much as Robyn or Marina, she just happens to look like she lives in Dalston. Going home in the knowledge that Lana Del Rey's album had leaked, there was only one song to put on: 'Nuclear Seasons' by Charli XCX.

This review was originally for Clashmusic.com.

[owenmyers]

Woman E - 'Desire'

With stadium keyboards, rave beats and a melancholic heart, this is the song that makes the 90s revival worthwhile. Frontwoman Ria Berlin has the understated delivery of deConstruction era Kylie, tenderly swerving around the heart-tugging refrain 'you don't know desire like I do'. A disco ballad of epic proportions. 

Single review from Music Week (13/01/12).

[owenmyers]

Chairlift - 'Something' Review

Move over Martika, Caroline Polachek is the new queen of fairground-pop. 'Something' is a hyper-literate hoot ('Amanaemonesia', anyone?), doing wry slice-o'-life as sweetly as its anti-gravity synths. The disorientating bliss of 'Sidewalk Safari' is the perfect soundtrack to an underwater dance-off, while 'Take It Out On Me' wears its Italo heartbreak on its sleeve. Quirky but never contrived, 'Something''s a real charmer. 

4/5

This review originally appeared in the February 2012 issue of Attitude.