Welcome to NEOLOOP


Step in to the Neoloop, have a look and listen!

You'll find a cornucopia of tasty tunes to bounce off your eardrums. I update with new tunes, art and photography every week, depending on what I'm doing and listening to at the time, old and new. I'm based in London UK but I love to travel and discover new music along the way and share my musical journey on neoloop.

Please support the artists and buy their music. If you are or represent an artist being featured on here and want me to remove something, email me.

Happy listening!

Neo

Email: neo@neoloop.com
  Heavy Rotation
  Category Cloud
  Albums of the year
Jul 29th, 2013 23:25pm

Hit the brain freeze button

Not for the faint hearted Fuck buttons are a viscerally demanding listen, industrial strength sound that should come with a health warning.

This is heavy, deep electronic music that grinds down into your subconscience, slowly manifesting itself into a pulverising melodic rhythm. New LP Slow Focus makes previous album Tarot Sport sound like a walk in the park, Slow Focus is exactly that, a sound that slowly builds under meticulously distorted soundscapes before a clarity of focus prevails. This track Stalker is an emotional, ethereal power serge, the whole LP is an immersive experience from a dark alien, future-industrial film soundtrack. Bristol duo Benjamin Power and Andrew Hung deliver an impressive third album, press it and enjoy. Recommended.

Get it on iTunes

Categories: Alternative, Electronic
Jul 28th, 2013 21:47pm

Psychedelic electronics

Copenhagen's Nick Eriksen aka Taragana Pyjarama makes lush and melodic sounds that transcend you into utopia. New mini-LP Nothing Hype is nothing short of beautiful bliss, magical dreamscapes and kaleidoscopic euphoria. Rar is a particular highlight, bubbling disco synths and floaty notes of happiness. Following on from last years debut Tipped Bowls, the journey continues on a similar tip. Nothing Hype needs more hype, it's so good. Highly Recommended.

Like this?, why not try: Todd Terje, Prins Thomas, Lindstrøm

Jul 28th, 2013 21:13pm

Electronic music with plenty of soul

Chilled and charmed grooves from Simon Green, AKA Bonobo, love this track from his fifth album The North Borders. Lead single Cirrus is slow build up into a melodic driving rhythm with amazing percussion, whistles and bells with shades of Four Tet going on. A cool track from a great LP.

Bonobo is touring all summer and hits the UK on 23 NOVEMBER 2013 playing in London at Brixton Academy.

Official site, Buy it on iTunes

Categories: Electronic
Jul 22nd, 2013 23:56pm

Sun-soaked Jam

Berlin-based producer Moritz Friedrich aka Siriusmo released his Enthusiast LP last month, this track Congratulator has been ripping up the decks for some time now, but it's the perfect accompaniment to Todd's Standbar and I dare say it will be gracing the the tunes of the year charts come December.

See you at the beach!

Categories: Electronic, Nu Disco
Jul 22nd, 2013 23:35pm

View from the beach bar

Todd Terje just keeps churning out the big guns - Ragysh, Snooze 4 Love, Inspector Norse, Lanzarote (with Lindstrøm) and now the follow-up Strandbar – which means beach bar - (Disko), already a monster dance-floor smash after a couple of months, the Norwegian producer/DJ is definitely on a purple patch.

Perfect for the summer sound system, Terje is master of the universe right now. The sun-kissed piano hook on this with the key changes is so cool, plenty of hands in the air moments, what's next for the disco superstar?!!

Categories: Disco, Electronic, Nu Disco
Jul 21st, 2013 23:41pm

Electrotango

The heatwave currently melting the UK right now needs an extra hot soundtrack. And it don't get much hotter than some tango rhythms to get the heat going. Who better than Bajofondo from Río de la Plata, the border between Argentina and Uruguay. Tango flavours, lavish strings and organs wash over the pulsing beats and electro riffs. This is a big opulent sound that enriches the mind as well as the feet, full of passion and drama Bajofondo latest long player, Presente is wonderful. Pide Piso is just one of the amazing tracks from this superb album. Recommended.

bajofondomusic.com, Buy it on iTunes

 

Categories: World
Jul 21st, 2013 23:15pm

Carnival Punk

A collision course of a tune this, dripping in funk with a punk attitude, there is a carnival spirit that runs through much of Melt Yourself Down's self titled debut LP. An acquired taste for some perhaps, this music is not meant to be taken lightly, it's an all or nothing affair that completely takes over. The carnival punk of We Are Enough is bonkers but infectious. 

Take it for spin on iTunes

Categories: Funk, Nu-jazz, Punk
Jul 21st, 2013 21:37pm

chanson d'amour

Cracking new tune from Vanessa Paradis' new LP Love Songs, this, the title track, half sung in English and half in French and written with the French pop star Benjamin Biolay. Vanessa's last LP was some 6 years ago, the absolutely brilliant Divinidylle, which is one of my favourite albums ever. So I couldn't believe my luck when I spotted this in a gas station while driving through France last month. This quickly became the soundtrack to my journey.

The title Love Songs indicates it could be full of ballads, but while there are a few I happy to say there are upbeat numbers too. Vanessa's ear for a infectious pop hook is in tact and songs like the title track, Les Espaces et les Sentiments, Mi Amor and Tu vois c'que j'vois are confirmation of that. A duet with Carl Barât on The Dark, It Comes is funny little tune about betrayal. Sombreros is a slow sumptuous summertime jam with a ska beat, skanking horns and soaring organs that Serge Gainsbourg would be proud of. The stripped back La Crème is enchanting as is most of this LP. Highly Recommened. Officially released in the UK this week, quick get it now before the sun packs up for winter.

iTunes link here, Official site here vanessaparadis.fr

Categories: French, Pop
Jul 21st, 2013 20:56pm

Escapism Music

As with all their previous LP's Boards of Canada make beautiful music with an uneasy edge to it, like a dramatic soundtrack to an unmade film. This track from their latest LP Tomorrow's Harvest sounds like a lost track from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Perfect listening for those late late nights in the small hours of the morning. Cyclosa is a spider genus in the family Araneidae, think about that when listening to this and it takes on a new vibe. Tomorrow's Harvest throws up plenty of rewards with persistent plays to take your to another place.

Escapism music for the connoisseur. 

Buy it on iTunes here.

Jul 21st, 2013 11:42am

Apocalypse Now

Bassist/songwriter/vocalist Stephen Bruner, aka Thundercat storms back with the follow-up the Flying Lotus co-produced The Golden Age of Apocalypse. Thundercat teamed up with executive producer Flying Lotus once again, to form a profound body of work for his second album, Apocalypse. Full of jazz influences that you'd expect with Flying Lotus, but also Bruner's father Ronald Bruner, Sr., is an internationally renowned jazz drummer who played with the Temptations, Diana Ross, Gary Bartz and Gladys Knight

The neo-soul of Heartbreaks + Setbacks is beautiful, Burner is on top form on the LP and I hope it will push his music to a wider audience. Each track offers something different, yet collectively works in harmony. The Life Aquatic is an instrumental of lotus beats and Burner bass. This track Oh Sheit It's X adds some disco pomp and funk guitars with a future-retro synths. Without You's skippy beats backsliding in and out of the bubbling melody is half ballad and half instrumental interlude, delightful. Burner pours blood, sweat and tears into this recored.

A welcome return and Highly Recommended.

Categories: Electronic, Funk, Jazz, Soul
Jul 21st, 2013 11:11am

Something Strange Is Happening

You'd think Kanye West is just being a dick with all his talk of god like status and monster ego, but then he releases a record that magnificently lives up to the hype. On first airing the LP is cacophony of noise, uneasy screams and shouting, electronic power surges and daunting beats. On further listens the squawking crows and elephant yelps on Black Skinhead make sense, tracks like the Daft Punk and Hudson Mohawke produced I Am A God (feat.God) are positively captivating from the electro pulses to the wild horror screams and at the same time inviting controversy. As Lou Reed says in his Guardian review - 'People say this album is minimal. And yeah, it's minimal. But the parts are maximal'. A statement that sums up this capricious record. 

The Hudson Mohawke helmed Blood on the Leaves is a very powerful song that samples the sacred song about lynching, the poem Strange Fruit, written by Abel Meeropol and famously performed by Nina Simone. West samples the line Blood on the Leaves as the centre of the song as well as a few other poignant lines of Simone's masterpiece. Kayne's not overly political with this song but talks about past relationships, you can draw some parallels between the two though. 

New Slaves is breathtaking and stuns with maximum effect and Kanye just doesn't give a fuck, he spits out the words with pure raw emotion "I wear my heart on the sleeve, I know that we the new slaves, I see the blood on the leaves" (another reference to Strange Fruit) and setting the tone for the whole album with lines like "You see there's leaders and there's followers, But I'd rather be a dick than a swallower". Then at just under 3 minutes the track has 'a day in the life moment' when Frank Ocean explodes into a crescendo as the song reaches its soaring climax.

As with his last LP Kanye isn't scared to try new things and consistently pushes boundaries creating original music. Highly Recommended.

Don't miss out, buy it on iTunes now

 

Categories: Hip Hop
Jul 14th, 2013 17:43pm

I am a sinner who's probably gonna sin again

I was just pondering whether the Magna Carta... Holy Grail possesses a track as good as Jay-Z's recent collaborative remake on Kendrick Lamar's Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe. Obviously the original Kendrick version was a major upstanding tune from the excellent good kid, m.A.A.d city, but Jay-Z's addition definitely rises to the occasion adding an air of sophistication to Kendrick's raw vibe. As Jay raps "I've been on my vibe like 20 years straight" Kendricks reciprocates with "If Shawn's a black Beatle then I need a 10 second drum solo" LOL!

Categories: Hip Hop
Jul 13th, 2013 18:55pm

Magna Carta... Holy Grail

Jay-Z's certified Platinum album Magna Carta... Holy Grail charted this week with mixed reception, undoubtably releasing his new LP so close to his good friend Kanye West has opened up the inevitable debate of comparison. Since the idiosyncratic Kanye has gone for various obscure and experimental directions on Yeezus, Jay-Z's MCHG sounds more traditional in structure leaning heavily on Timbaland productions, so if Jay-Z is watching the throne - Kanye's sitting on it. Magna Carta Holy Grail does dish-up some killer tracks but there are a few not so great tracks. 

The collaborations are the songs that stand out F*ckWithMeYouKnowIGotIt (feat. Rick Ross) with it's slow moody electro beat is a brooding and dark chilled-out hip-hop film score with Ricks familiar drawl complementing Jay's lively style. Another highlight is the sublime contribution from Frank Ocean on Oceans, Frank is definitely on fire at the moment in the wake of the successful Channel Orange. His voice supports Jay-Z's delivery with class and style, it could have featured with the best tracks on Watch The Throne. This track Nickels and Dimes, which is of course an original song by the distinguished Gonjasufi and produced by Gaslamp Killer, taken from Gonjasufi's album MU.ZZ.LE, which was released last year. (Hear the original here on neoloop). Jay-Z doesn't change much of the original tune, rhyming effortlessly over it as if it was meant to be that way. Showing that Jay-Z has a good ear for an underground tune.

While Jay-Z is a powerhouse brand nowadays, bragging rights on Picasso Baby are reserved for making billions and trillions as opposed to making millions, few rap artists are in his league. So while Jay-Z sells his album to a phone company for an exclusive release, El-P and Killer Mike are giving one away for free. The whole game of releasing music is an entirely different landscape in 2013, anything goes I guess, but I can't help thinking no one has quite topped the radical shock return to a media-saturated world quite like Bowie did earlier this year. As for Magna Carta... Holy Grail it's already gone Platium.

Nickels and Dimes originally by Gonjasufi


Official site

 

Categories: Hip Hop