The Last Panthers is a television show that dives deep into the crime world in a mystery about stolen diamonds. I think. To be honest, I haven’t seen it. You don’t need to in order to appreciate Clark’s soundtrack for the show.

Judging from the soundtrack, I would expect The Last Panthers to feel like a dark, dangerous trip for its heroes. Clark is in prime form here: textures are everywhere, but more interesting is how he uses them to create weird sort-of sound effects, much like Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross did with such aplomb on the Gone Girl soundtrack.

As a point of comparison, Clark’s work does beg to be compared to the output from Trent and Atticus. It sounds like they’re exploring similar themes, in the sense that they’re using electronic music and it’s repetitious rhythms to slowly build to climaxes and crescendos.

What makes Clark’s record different from anything Reznor and Ross have done is that it feels more free to explore. Undoubtedly, this has to do with writing for television instead of the movies. While themes repeat, and often grow more sinister in time, the space between them can breathe. Cryogenic breathes until it slowly descends back towards darkness by the end. (It only takes two notes for Clark to create a strong sense of unease, which is astounding.)

Much of the soundtrack, certainly its most impactful moments, live within that tension and unease. Brother Killer is a great example. It excels at building tension to a point that feels unbearable, until suddenly becoming something else.

Unlike film soundtracks, The Last Panthers is missing a sense of focus in that regard. But when Clark is able to write focused thematic pieces, he excels. Diamonds Aren’t Forever and Diamonds Aren’t Forever II are perfect examples of this: clearly spiritually related songs, with similar themes, the tension builds to a remarkable climax of texture and discomfort with II.

In a lot of ways, Clark’s record goes beyond many expectations for a soundtrack. It carries itself as well as his 2014 record did, and although it lacks the focus, it feels exploratory and powerful. Clark understands and enjoys his exploring the aesthetic of film, and because his music is so textural, it’s a natural fit.

The Last Panthers is, on record, a visual story as much as it would be on television. As an album, it holds up well with the rest of his library. Like everything Clark makes, there’s a melancholic motion that carries it all forward. It’s an astounding contribution to electronic music and to film soundtracks, and one that’s worth listening to without a visual point of reference.

The Last Panthers is an original take on a well-trodden genre that feels uniquely Clark. It’s a total treat.

The post Clark: The Last Panthers appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Consider Conqueror: it’s a giant, radio-friendly pop song with a simple piano riff for the chorus and a Coldplay-like guitar riff stacked behind it. It’s something your mother could listen to. But AURORA’s unusual, hypnotic voice makes it all feel very palatable. She gives it a sense of mystique.

Running with the Wolves is similar: the single is an obvious single that sounds destined for greatness in our Imagine Dragons era, but her voice saves the day again.

AURORA’s voice makes the quieter songs worth the price of admission. Lucky and Through the Eyes of a Child are two massive standouts on the record, given a sense of grace — and a hymnal quality — thanks to the Norwegian singer’s voice.

Much of these quieter tracks are reportedly influenced by Norwegian folk songs. Whether that’s true or not, they’ll bare an astounding resemblance to church music with North American audiences. As AURORA harmonizes with herself, she successfully emulates both Enya and the church choir, giving the album a much-needed sense of depth.

It all comes together on Warrior, the first potential single that feels like it really uses all of AURORA’s skills (and it comes very late in the album). Leaning on almost nothing but AURORA’s voice and a strong beat, Warrior lets the singer branch out and stretch her wings.

All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend is an unusual pop album because it feels so stacked in its back half. Perhaps in a marketing move, the most bland radio songs are placed at the beginning of the record, and its most interesting radio-pleasers — Warrior and Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) are left closer to the end.

When you listen to Warrior and Murder Song, it becomes apparent that AURORA listens to a lot of Björk. Before that, I wouldn’t have guessed. It’s on these tracks that AURORA feels like she’s free from the label’s requirements to put out generic pop songs and be herself, and they save the otherwise-generic singles from being totally forgettable (again, apart from her voice).

I’d love to hear an album of AURORA songs that sounds like the second half of this one. Until then, it’s clear that AURORA is a pop artist who still has to come into her own — but her future is promising.

The post Aurora: All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Untouchable Skin isn’t doing anything new, but while other electronic producers are experimenting with avant-grade genre-pushing boundaries, it’s great to see somebody stick with what works. Grenda’s rhythmic pulsing music is both trip-hop and electro-pop, with strong hints of techno throughout. It’s often mesmerizing.

Element of Risk is his first single, and with an aggressive drum track, it sounds like the marrying of Trent Reznor and Flume. But it’s also incredibly visual music, music that you can “see” as you listen.

At the same time, the inescapable weakest link in Amezcua’s music is the vocal work. Tracks where his singing is dominant don’t work as well as the electronic efforts. Thankfully, it sounds like he’s realized this: he uses his voice to amplify the electronic work, matching and harmonizing in simple ways that sound like an electronic version of what Ozzy Osbourne was originally doing in Black Sabbath fifty years ago.

It’s a good call: vocals-as-texture is an appropriate approach here, especially since the album feels like an experiment in textural loops and minor variations on themes. Blind Folded is another great example: his voice does minor backing duties to the instruments, which are densely packed in maximalist fashion, as if Grenda is challenging us to suggest another way he could layer everything.

Dry Lips is a standout track as well because it reveals Grenda’s attention to detail: he’s a self-aware electronic producer that is far more advanced than many of his older peers. And while his vocabulary is limited (Higher sounds like many other tracks on the record, for example), his ability to marry elements into dense packages that each feel unique gets him very far.

The biggest question for Grenda is simple: what comes next? As great as Untouchable Skin is, it feels like a clear exploration of a single theme. If he can continue to expand his sounds, Amezcua is going to have a great future with this electronic work.

The post Grenda: Untouchable Skin appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Heron Oblivion is filled with raging rock riffs and quiet, pastoral moments that singer (and drummer) Meg Baird fills with an angelic sense of calm despite the overwhelming sense of unease present through the record.

The tone lends itself to wandering: Rama is over ten minutes long, with the band unafraid to explore their psychedelic leanings. Few songs have the immediacy of Oriar and Sudden Lament (which sounds like it would have fit it well in an alternate universe’s Pulp Fiction soundtrack).

Faro is the stand-out track (among many) on the record. Clear riffs and building tension set it apart from some of the other tracks, but the growing tension feels a constant need to reach catharsis with the guitars.

It’s an excellent summary for the album: despite the unusual calm that Baird is able to bring to the record with her vocal work, as the tension piles up, the album has to resolve itself with nothing less than cathartic guitar solos and pummelling riffs. It’s the sonic equivalent of a conversation in a diner leading to a film’s climactic shootout, as if two opposing sides can’t reconcile themselves.

All of that comes together with Heron Oblivion’s debut with shocking ease. Well aware of their clashing styles, the band doesn’t attempt to marry them without first embracing the tension and allowing it to dictate where the music needs to go.

Heron Oblivion is at its most transcendent when that tension explodes into guitar solos and drum batteries. The styles clash and complement each other in a way that feels original and unique to Heron Oblivion, and makes for an incredibly strong debut that’s not shy about the band’s aspirations.

The post Heron Oblivion: Heron Oblivion appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Perhaps it’s easiest to let Erased Tape Records, the studio behind the collaboration, explain it for us:

Musical instruments are a somewhat technological anomaly in that they are rarely updated after their conception, often only receiving minor tweaks over the course of hundreds of years. As such, each instrument provides us with a snapshot of the cutting edge technologies of a particular time and place – in this sense, the instrumentation used by Immix provides us with snapshots of technologies that can be traced back as far as 1500BC.

Each track is a movement with two parts highlighting the discovery of an instrument, marrying it with the discovery of electronic music and synthesizers. A strange sort of synthesis happens here, when the instruments collide: historical context feels lost in metaphor and draped in allusions, and what might otherwise be simply noise takes on new meaning.

What Hath God Wrought is the most straight-forward track on the album, but it really takes off with De Revolutionibus, a track that begins to collide the electronics and organic instrumentation in a less organic and more oppositional way.

As the album continues, the pairing becomes more violent as the electronic instruments slowly take over, cleverly posing a question about the future of music itself. It comes to a massive head in the appropriately titled Battle Cry.

At twenty-six minutes, you would think there wouldn’t be enough time for serious exploration. But Immix and Vessel are impressively able to mine a lot of depth in that short period of time, to the point where a longer record would perhaps feel overwhelming.

This is not easy listening. This is purely avant-garde electronics at work, married to the sort of frenetic creativity that classical music once prided itself on. Transition is a rewarding listen, but not one that gives itself up easily.

The post Immix Ensemble & Vessel: Transition — EP appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

So in celebration of his new record with Iggy Pop this week, Post Pop Depression, we’re looking back at Homme’s best five albums. With a repertoire like Homme’s, five is pretty limiting, so you might be shocked at what does — or doesn’t — make the list.

Eagles of Death Metal

Zipper Down

The latest record from Eagles of Death Metal feels like a total one-off from Homme. Much like his on-again, off-again relationship with the band, Homme embraces his on-again, off-again relationship with old-school rock and roll for this record.

Zipper Down has absolutely no substance value. There is nothing here to listen for deeply. It’s greasy, sexy, riffed-up fun that has no major theme, and nothing to prove. And that’s what makes it so great: more than perhaps any other band, Eagles of Death Metal exists purely to entertain. And that’s wonderful.

Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Queens of the Stone Age

...Like Clockwork

…Like Clockwork was the first time a Queens of the Stone Age record hit number one on Billboard, a feat that I’m not sure anybody in the band particularly cares about. It was also their most critically well-received album since Songs for the Deaf, with critics fawning over the album’s weirdness and strange charms.

Make no mistake, …Like Clockwork is weird. It’s undeniably Rolling Stones-esque, but beneath all the sex and booze barely hidden in the album’s riffs, there’s a sense of darkness. The best Queens of the Stone Age records always had a whiff of darkness, and this one is their darkest in years — perhaps ever. Coupled with Homme’s propensity for weird ideas, …Like Clockwork is one of the weirdest albums in rock music.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Kyuss

Blues for the Red Sun

Blues for the Red Sun was not Homme’s most popular record, selling only 39,000 copies originally. But it might be his most influential work: today, almost all of stoner rock is indebted to Kyuss’ sophomore album for setting templates and defining the sound within the spectrum of Homme’s desert rock.

Part of the album’s success is undoubtedly its unhinged sound: Homme churned out the album’s Black Sabbath-style riffs by plugging his down-tuned electric guitar into a bass amp, distorting its tone beyond what a traditional guitar amplifier would be able to accomplish. It makes the album sound unearthly, despite the earthy qualities of its riffs.

If ever there was an album that could be described as the sound of a lumbering giant, Blues for the Red Sun would be it.

Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Them Crooked Vultures

Them Crooked Vultures

Them Crooked Vultures is an unusual supergroup: with Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones (of Led Zeppelin fame) in the group, it’s unusual not because of its talent, but because the band is actually great. Somehow able to get past all their egos and make music together just for fun, the resulting debut record is a formidable slab of groovy rock that sounds like a more textured version of a Queens of the Stone Age record.

John Paul Jones is the band’s ultimate weapon. His ability to add texture to a track makes the album stand out. But when the band comes together and unites on a single riff, the possibilities feel endless. The last half of No One Loves Me & Neither Do I is a hard rock tour-de-force that you can’t be prepared for, with the huge riff and pummelling drum work by Grohl hitting you in the face.

Scumbag Blues and Elephants are two perfect examples of the Led Zeppelin influence that Jones brings to the table as well, but they’re also interesting because they reveal a larger sense of scope and texture. Them Crooked Vultures feels like exactly the sort of record you’d expect from Homme, but it also carries a certain amount of surprise with it too.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Queens of the Stone Age

Songs for the Deaf

Songs for the Deaf was a critical darling that catapulted Queens of the Stone Age into the mass media. Featuring drum work by Dave Grohl, the concept album was meant to simulate driving through the desert while listening to different radio stations along the way. Hence, in between tracks, there’s often a fake radio excerpt played as if the station were changing.

In a sense, that running joke became the album’s stroke of genius and made Queens of the Stone Age known as total satirical oddballs. Detractors of the band say that Queens of the Stone Age has one style, and the big joke of the record is that every radio station sounds the same. It’s a tongue-in-cheek admission that the band is neither radio-friendly or stylistically well-rounded, but also a simple suggestion that if the radio was all it was cracked up to be, then it would play Queens of the Stone Age.

All of that would mean nothing if the album wasn’t any good, but it might be the band’s best. It’s balls-to-the-wall riffs, with Homme at his absolute best as a songwriter and vocalist. As the band cycles through riff after riff, they make it clearer than ever that they are not their influences, and they’re able to continue pushing hard rock and metal to new limits.

Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

The post Our Favourite Josh Homme Records appeared first on Unsung Sundays.