some new tune reviews

Coldplay - "Talk" (single from forthcoming album, X&Y): I don't hear any of the tell-tale piano, and the guitar riff sounds as if it were lifted from an epic U2 song. It would be interesting to hear in the context of the rest of the album.

Hot Hot Heat - elevator: Major label debut from this canadian version of The Strokes. They get clever points for skipping the 13th track like most tall buildings skip the thirteenth floor.

13 & god - s/t: What we have here is The Notwist longside members of the Anticon collective. If you're familiar with the ingredients then you can guess what to expect, there's vox from both outfits, so we have some sing-songy stuff and some bizarre vocal stylings on top of IDM/downtempo beats. It's basically sounds like The Notwist vs. cLOUDDED, which is great if you're feeling moody and strange.

Mary Timony - ex hex: I wonder if the title refers to getting away from the curse that bestowed all her previous solo work. The curse would have been that it was horrible. This sounds more like her old band Helium, which sounded a lot cooler 12 year ago.

Experimental Audio Research - mesmerized / beyond the pale / phenomena 256: These 3 albums are not new, in fact all three are from 1994 & 96, but I recently discovered them and thought they merited a mention. The first two E.A.R. albums consist of Sonic Boom (spacemen 3), Kevin Martin (god, techno animal), Kevin Shields (my bloody valentine), and Eddie Prevost (AMM). The third trades Kevin Shields for Pete Bassman (spacemen 3). OK, now that you're either A. bored, or B. confused, we'll mention that this is essentially beatless ambient music with titles such as "DMT Symphony (overture to an inhabited zone)", and "Sub Aqua (left channel) Tidal (centre channel) Lunar (right channel)". Great stuff to completely zone out to.

-neph-