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.
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Happy listening!
Neo
Email: neo@neoloop.comSébastien Tellier returns with LP Confection, it's a mostly an instrument affair, with all the quirky nuances that we've come to expect from the Frenchman. There are links throughout the LP that entwine the songs together, it feels very much like a complete soundtrack to a romance set in a fantasy world.
L'amour Naissant is undoutably the lead track here and the only one that features Sébastien's vocals. The rolling beats are very reminiscent of Tellier's seminal 2004 hit La Ritournelle (a bonafide classic). L'amour Naissant II and III also pop up later in the album in slightly different guises each coining the rolling piano hook throughout. The whole LP picks up somewhere in the vein of his 2006 compilation LP Universe, tracks like La Ballade Du Georges from that LP would sit along nicely in the mix.
So if your after more like 2008's Sexuality or last years My God Is Blue then you may feel disappointed, but if you approach it as a mellow soundtrack to a floating fantasy then you'll enjoy the subtle quirkiness gently weaved through lush orchestration and downbeat grooves. Good to see you again monsieur Tellier!
Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the Shins have returned as Broken Bells, and their sophomore LP After the Disco is out January 14 via Columbia. A great little tune in a similar style to their debut, but this track has added Bee Gees style vocals in the chorus soaring over the verses of strumming easy going beats. Looking forward to the LP next month.
OK so it's all over the radio, but I still like this old school houser, complete with Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock sample 'Wahoo, Yeah!' from Breach aka: Ben Westbeech.
On It Takes Two Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock use multiple samples from the James Brown and Lyn Collins 1972 song Think (About It). Westbeach makes the most of a spot of recycling using the old sample to full effect, pulling it back into vogue.
Featuring the lush tones of London songstress Andreya Triana, she certainly chooses her collaborators wisely and has guested on tracks from Bonobo, Flying Lotus and Mr Scruff. Breach are in good company!
Knowing We'll Be Here, from Daniel Avery's debut album Drone Logic. Widely regarded as an electronic masterpiece, this immersive last track from the LP is a totally captivating, melodic minimalism of the highest calibre.
From M.I.A's brand new LP Matangi, this big slab of banging dancehall is a current favourite. An unlikely source of inspiration from Shampoo’s throw-away hit Trouble, it explodes from dub beats to jackhammer thumper, produced by The Partysquad. The majority of the album is produced by long-time collaborator Switch of course and hints back at the first Major Lazer LP when Switch was still on board with Diplo. Probably Maya Arulpragasam's most accessible and accomplished LP to date, named Matangi, her birth name, and the name of Hindu goddess of music.
For years this superb exotic disco-noir tune was a mega rare 1984 12”. One-hit German beauties Saâda Bonaire have now made this and 11 other unheard tracks available on digital download via Captured Tracks, Saâda Bonaire’s debut LP was recorded nearly 30 years ago and apart from this track have not seen the light of day until now. The dub-disco sound on the self titled LP could almost be a lost Grace Jones album.
Originally signed to EMI in 1982, their first and only single, You Could Be More As You Are was produced in Kraftwerk’s studio by legendary Matumbi, Slits and Pop Group producer Dennis Bovell. Composed of DJ Ralf Behrendt, Stefanie Lange, and Claudia Hossfeld plus a plethora of musicians that he picked up working in a immigration centre. EMI budget contraints led to the LP being shelved and the band disbanded soon after.
Full of quirky dubbed out disco, 80's synths and bongos with Middle Eastern flutes and sitars laid over African beats and Moroder style electronics. Even though it was recorded in the eighties it still stands up today like a brand new retro-future LP. Highly Recommended.
Those bearded indie-folk are back with a new LP, their fourth - Antiphon. Following the departure of singer-songwriter Tim Smith in 2012 the band carry on with guitarist Eric Pulido stepping up to frontman. Essentially the bands overall style and sound is in tact, but ultimately this LP falls slightly short of The Trials of Van Occupanther and The Courage of Others. But there are some good psychedelic easy listening tunes that continue down the Fleetwood Mac meets Pink Floyd sound they do so well. The title track builds slowly, rolling in a ’70s baroque sound, Aurora Gone is a mellow floaty folky delight. Vale is an incredible instrumental rock-out jam that Deafheaven would be proud of. Provider is a straight up classic that's totally in tune with Midlake's prog-rock tendencies, with the dizzyingly hypnotic Provider (Reprise) finishing the album with style. Another album, another direction for ever evolving Texas group.
Like this? Try: Fleet Foxes, Tame Impala, John Grant, Midlake's Late Night Tales compilation (released in 2011).
So the Montreal band have abandoned alternative rock and made an alternative dance album! The influence of the former LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy on co-production duties has surely shaped the double LP into a masterpiece that LCD Soundsystem may have made had they not called it day in 2011.
To be honest I like Arcade Fires previous 3 albums, but I've not been completely blown away by them. With the slight change in direction I've been convinced of their brilliance. Afterlife is about as 'LCD' as it gets and is a magnificent song. Elsewhere we get to pick out all the other great influences that Murphy shares with the band, from Sound and Vision era Bowie (and his vocal contribution obviously) to 80's era Prince and Michael Jackson to the seventies disco beats and G-funk to Talking Heads and Velvet Underground. It's an altogether interesting record that throws up different highlights on every listen. Recommended.
Cut-up disco from Norwegian disco pioneer Mathias Stubø, back with his live band Proviant Audio. The new LP called Drift Days & Disco Nights, this choice slice is one of many great tracks from this collection of disco and off-kilter hip-hop beats with popping snippets.
Nu-disco LPs like this don't come along to often, dripping with a golden quality to shake your booty to together with lazy Balearic beats to drift along with. It's got more pop than the likes of Lindstrom and Todd Terje but that's no bad thing. A little late for the summer now, but it sure does brighten up the grey skies of winter. A touch of old Daft punk here and there with more hooks than a strip of velcro. Highly Recommended!
Brosteinsjungel is one of the tracks on the B-side from Tarjei Nygård's latest Single Hardkokt, a disco marathon that just keeps going, the unrelenting bubbling groove takes over the senses and complete carries you off, pausing only for the introduction of chopping organs sampled from Seventies classic Why Can't We Live together by Soulman Timmy Thomas. The other tracks Hardkokt and Katapult are banging too, mixed by key man Prins Thomas.
As sampled above by Tarjei Nygård for his killer disco gem - Brosteinsjungel, this is the original song by Timmy Thomas where Tarjei takes that chopping organ sound, while it's transformed into a nu-disco romp, there is something very special about Timmy's original from 1972, taken off the album of the same name.