May Playlist: My Heart Just Sunk

A new month means a new monthly playlist - here are 10 tracks, old and new, that made my ears very happy in May:

1. Waitress - Hop Along

(from Painted Shut)

Frances Quinlan from Hop Along (a band recommended to me in the wake of this blog post) is my favourite vocalist in rock right now. Her voice is at its best when she pushes it to and beyond its limits; there are moments in Waitress when it sounds like her throat is about to explode, and those moments are glorious. Top riff, too.

Review: Hotel by Matthew Pastkewicz

When I reviewed Matthew Pastkewicz's Quarters EP last year, I described it as "percussive, pulsing electronica [that] sounds positively triumphant, like the sort of thing you hear in your head when you run for a train and actually catch it".

Today, Pastkewicz releases a full-length album: it's called Hotel, and it's a markedly darker listen than Quarters. While 'percussive, pulsing electronica' remains a fair description of what's on offer here, the euphoric feel of the EP has largely been replaced by a sort of towering dread, as if Pastkewicz was trying to make the soundtrack to a dystopian sci-fi film that takes place amongst the imposing industrial architecture of the old Soviet Union.

Harsh synthesised sounds are the order of the day, although I do like the way those otherworldly noises are juxtaposed against earthier-sounding (but no less intimidating) drum parts. These tribal-sounding beats underpin the electronic squall very nicely, giving Pastkewicz's compositions a visceral organic edge that keeps things from becoming too alienating.

September Playlist: Come What May

Blimey, another month over - this place will be filled with Christmas music before long!

In the meantime, here are 10 of the tracks that have been tickling my fancy over the last 30 days. Click here for last month's playlist.

1. Grown-Ups - The Burning Hell

(from People)
I spent roughly 700 words analysing this album's closing track last week. Today, I'd like to draw your attention to the equally ace opening track - from the awesome first line ("You were a Nazi hunter...") to the wistfully ambiguous ending ("By the time you read this..."), Grown-Ups is the perfect representation of what it's like to not be a kid any more.

EP Corner: Quarters

Matthew Pastkewicz was one of the many talented musicians heard on MEN, the record-breaking, quadruple-disc, 111-track debut album from Cardiff's favourite bedlamites Quiet Marauder.

Quarters, an EP that Pastkewicz released under his own name earlier this year, is absolutely nothing like MEN. For one thing, it has 109 fewer tracks, making it pretty short even by EP standards. For a second thing, its two songs have more in common with Mogwai and their Rock Action roster than with the lo-fi, melodica-heavy unfolk in which Quiet Marauder specialise. Pastkewicz's own press release thingy describes his sound as "drone based post-rock", but speaking as someone who briefly heard drone daddies Sunn O))) boring the Primavera crowd to death back in June, I will say that Quarters is far more exciting than that description might suggest.