Cheekbone’s mesmerising new Yesterday EP has just received a glowing review on Sonic Frontiers, described by reviewer Michael Henaghan as “the perfect soundtrack for a lazy summer afternoon, relaxing next to the Mediterranean Sea”. Read the review in full, or an excerpt in Cheekbone’s review section.
The launch of Beautiful Lunar Landscape’s bewitching Alone in this Dark Romantic Night EP went off in style last week at Bordeaux’s El Inca, with the premiere of Jimmy Olsson’s tremendous video of the EP’s title track and excellent support from Colour Kane. Pop along to BLL’s MySpace blog to see some photos from the night and read Ben’s report.
Check out the wonderful new music video for the title track to the debut EP “Alone in this Dark Romantic Night” by Beautiful Lunar Landscape. The video was shot in Bordeaux, France and was directed by Swedish director and film maker Jimmy Olsson.
The video is can be viewed on HSR TV as well as being available for purchase in high quality Ipod ready Mpeg-4 format from the HSR Store.
If you haven’t yet immersed yourself in this band then check out the video, listen to the EP and you’ll soon find out what you’ve been missing.
“Before we get into the story behind this disc, let us just start by saying, that not only is this one of our new favorite records, a gorgeous slithery, smokey cross between Bohren And Der Club Of Gore and Portishead, but that it took a whole lot of work to get it into the store and available for sale… This disc is the latest from German combo Sankt Otten, often considered to be the Portishead of Germany, and sonically, that’s not all that far off the mark. Although when we first heard it, we heard a lot of Bohren as well, late period Talk Talk, and maybe a little Tricky and Massive Attack. It all adds up exactly how you might imagine. Slow burning instrumentals, humid and sultry, Morricone-ish guitars drifting in a sea of rumble and shimmer, the bass a slithery serpent of sound, smooth and sexy sometimes, distorted and fuzz drenched at others. But as with music like this, it’s all about two things, the drums, and the atmosphere. And the drums here are perfect. And heck, so is the ambience. The rhythms almost always begin a jazzy skitter, the cymbals sizzling, the snare brushed, occasionally lurching into a more propulsive funk flecked rhythm. A dark lugubrious pulse, dangerous and dimly lit. The drums demarcate a darkened path through back alleys and smoky clubs, everything cloaked in a thick, ominous ambience. Dense sonic swells wrapped around sparse arrangements and moody minor key melodies… Some tracks sound so much like Portishead, they could be lost B-sides or instrumental outtakes, but Sankt Otten manage to imbue even those tracks too with their own stamp, be it an unlikely melody, some Western twang, some strange distorted bass line, spidery atonal synth or an unexpected abstract breakdown… It’s all just so intensely moody and melancholy, jazzy and dramatic, and so so gorgeous.”
