Listen: CONCLΔVE – “Crystal Skies”

Back to the land of the thousand islands we head today, to be reunited once more with the 23 year old beatsmith, Conclave. We haven’t learnt any more about him since we featured the dark and dextrous “Melted” back in February, but he has subsequently released a couple of new tracks online.

“Ocean Star” has that distressed feel, like stone washed electronica with Lana Del Rey vocals, while his latest, “Crystal Skies” (which you can stream below) continues the theme. There is no LDR styling here though, but distant and echoey vocals calling out from afar, trying to reach for the deep piano sounds and glitchy, sci-fi electronics.

Moving within shadows, the vocals evoke just the faintest feeling of Dev Hynes’ Blood Orange persona with an almost imperceptible underground seediness lingering in the darkness. It is sedate, haunting and atmospheric, music to soundtrack the oncoming dusk as day begins to fade into night.

Both “Ocean Star” and “Crystal Skies” will feature alongside “Melted” and another, yet to be released track, “Siren”, on Conclave’s forthcoming Night Oasis EP.

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Listen: A Q U I L O – “Calling Me”

From the off, “Calling Me” sounds a little different to your run of the mill electronica. Opening ‘ahhhhhhhhhh’s, that sound sufficiently choral they should be filling the ornate ceilings of a cathedral, are set alongside a ringing bell akin to that heard on a Titanic lifeboat in the fog, before giving way to some wondrously spacious harmonies.

Heralding from the majestic wide open spaces of the Lake District, newly formed four-piece A Q U I L O have already won our hearts with this gentle, probing debut. Depending on who you ask/read, the background for the group varies, what we know for sure is that Tom Higham and Ben Fletcher have been about before in other groups, separately from (and often competing with) one another. How they then came together and hooked up with Lucas Button and Fin Kay Lavelle is not as clear but we are glad they did.

What they have created is a stunning piece of atmospheric, smoke-like electronic pop music. It’s elegant, not trying to do more than it needs to, instead realising the strength that exists in simplicity and excelling in blending delicate melodies, harmonies and rhythms. That it comes with an infectious pop-hook doesn’t exactly harm it either.

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Listen: CONCLΔVE – “Melted”

Sometimes we get emails from artists that contain an inordinate amount of biographical detail and press quotes that border on the ostentatious they are so effusive. Not all are like that of course, most are very well balanced but occasionally we get some that say practically nothing at all.

Like the email we received from Conclave who’s bio proclaimed him to be a “23 year old beatsmith from the land of the thousand islands”. Which, according to Google, could put him in the Adriatic Sea just off the coast of Croatia, in Indonesia or possibly by a salad. Further digging revealed little, other than he proclaims to ”bake beats” and works in the ‘calm/chaotic’ music genre.

“Melted” falls into the calm scene, but with a foreboding, twisted bassline that shudders and vibrates underneath skittish beats and a simple piano melody, reminiscent of Mezzanine era Massive Attack. It’s quite a dextrous piece of electronica with its darkness balanced by soft, glacial vocals, here provided by collaborator and lyricist, Berna So. Who cares where he comes from when it sounds this good?

”Melted” will feature on a forthcoming Conclave EP.

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Review: Delphic – Collections

First things first, Collections is not Acolyte redux. Not even remotely. When announcing the follow-up to their exceptional 2010 debut, the band said; “We didn’t want to make an album that replicated ‘Acolyte’, that more-of-the-same-again approach seems all too abundant at the moment and it doesn’t interest us in the slightest, so we set out to challenge ourselves”.

And challenge, they have for Collections is musically very different, with a much greater emphasis on the beat and almost none on the dance-rock sound that brought them to the dance in the first place. Influences come from all over, as if the guys have spent three years listening to every other musical style out there and choosing which ones to use. It’s a bit of a kitchen sink approach, with hip-hop, overblown future rock, dubstep, banghra, 80’s pop, ballads, dance and many more all evident across the 10 tracks.

While this does serve to show the new diversity of Delphic, we don’t think that a confused ‘huh?’ was the reaction they were hoping to illicit from listeners but for the first couple of spins, but that’s exactly where we found ourselves. It doesn’t have the instant accessibility of Acolyte which hit you square between the eyes from the opening moments of “Clarion Call”, and seems to lack cohesion, it doesn’t feel like a single whole like you would expect an album to.

Evidently though, this is by design, as Rick explained to XFM. “Collections is a collection of songs that don’t necessarily sound the same, which challenges listeners to get out of their boxes. It’s why people have shuffle, so they can hear different songs on their playlists”. So it’s an album that is designed to be listened to in a different order each time?

It’s an interesting concept, to deliberately create an album that isn’t designed to be enjoyed as an album, but one that makes some sense given the public’s predilection for disposable music and preference for downloading singles only. It’s like a less technologically advanced version of Gwilym Gold’s Bronze format which promised listeners they would never hear the same version of a song twice.

So, we decided to give it a spin or two on shuffle and the result was interesting. The lack of cohesion, of a singularity across the music, no longer mattered. We didn’t know what was up next so that randomness, the variety of styles felt fresh rather than confusing. We were able to enjoy the tunes for what they were not for what they didn’t do. “Bayia” felt sexy and energetic; “The Sun Also Rises” like Yeasayer had penned music for a rousing BBC montage; “Tears Before Bedtime”, featuring heartache via voicemail, feels more poignant when it precedes rather than follows “Atlas”, which itself is a multi-headed hydra spitting musical styles like fireballs.

We’d have to say, shuffle is the way forward for Collections, though we are honestly not sure if that is a good thing or not.

Collections is out now and available on iTunes or directly from the band.

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Introducing: Ecstasy

Until recently, whenever we came across any random mention of Ecstasy, our mind would wander to the Chris Lily creation, Summer Heights High and Mr Gee’s fantastic musical. That has changed now with the arrival of a new London-based electronica/synthy/dreampop/indie combo which has taken the feeling of rapture and bliss as its name.

We are not sure how we first came across Ecstasy, we had emailed the link to their Soundcloud page to our own inbox with no other notes or comments, but we are pretty damn glad we did. The four-piece are comprised of Joe, vocals/synth/samples; Laura, vocals; Rosemary, synths and James, guitars/synths/percussion – they also have a drummer but, according to Joe when speaking to Little Indie Blogs, ”he’s not fully committed yet”. If he doesn’t sign up soon then we’ll be talking about him being committed in another sense entirely.

They may have only formed in September, after meeting through friends and ex-girlfriends, but all the signs are that they’re set for big things in 2013, with the likes of XfM and Amazing Radio already spinning their tunes and the blog world starting to get in a bit of a tizzy about their popgaze sound. All this and they don’t even have a manager or have played a single gig yet.

The excitement is not surprising really as the music genuinely causes you to sit up and take notice as it quickens your pulse. Ecstasy announced their arrival online with the double whammy of an amazing, stirring rendition of Band of Horses’ “Funeral”, and the swirling MGMT-ness of “Shinjuku Bride”. They have subsequently been joined online by the tracks, “White Limos” and (yesterday) “Exhale”. With similarities to likes of The Naked and Famous (though already showing more versatility of sound), they have wedded both electronic and indie elements together into vast, venue filling pop. Dual vocals soar skyward hand-in-hand but occasionally, delightfully, dance around, a double-helix of sound entwined together as the beat and the bass rumble on below.

More tracks have been promised in the coming weeks, including a Rihanna cover of all things, before they start on some videos and gigging, but for now just click on the track below, turn it up load and get lost in some quality pop music.

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