Articles
2013 Artist Picks
Jane Ira Bloom

Albums
Wataru Abe
Antonymes
Benoît Pioulard
Jane Ira Bloom
Blu Mar Ten
Matti Bye
Celer
Maile Colbert
Viv Corringham
Ensemble Economique
Karlheinz Essl
Farthest South
Faures
Flica
Fryadlus
Ghost Bike
Ikebana
Rafael Anton Irisarri
The Jaydes
Lantscap
Tristan Louth-Robins
Löwenritter
Chloë March
Lubomyr Melnyk
Mental Overdrive
Northumbria
Ed Osborn
perth
Xenia Pestova
Preghost
Redfish
Rion
Sicker Man
Thee Silver Mt. Zion M. O.
Ken Thomson
Otto A Totland
Vitiello + Berg

Compilations / Mixes
#100
Best of Poker Flat 2013
Evolution of the Giraffe
Danny Howells
Missing Fragments

EPs / Cassettes / Mini-Albums / Singles
Richard J. Birkin
DJ Bone
Cernlab
Akira Kosemura
Fabrice Lig
Lilies on Mars
Mako
Nian Dub
Nuage
Quiroga
Sheens
Snoqualmie Falls
Solenoid
Strong Souls
Tessela
ujif_notfound
Voyager

Sheens: Hey You
KizzKizz Rec.

Having listened to its first song “Hey You,” one might be surprised to learn that Sheens isn't a UK or US outfit but rather an Eastern European band (Alexey Belous, Alexey Plaksiuk, Artem Fedotov, Alexandr Konotopets, and Phil Fatekhov) who've promised that Russian and Ukrainian songs will appear on their first and future albums as opposed to English ones only. The song itself is a suitably shiny gem, a frothy three minutes of vocal electropop delivered with no small amount of breezy effervescence. A seeming paean to youth and all the hope and promise that comes with it (“Can you see the sun is gonna tease us a wonderful sunrise / I bet today is the best moment ever supposed to be given”), the song lyrically plays like a bit of a wake-up call, an advert for exchanging the safety of insularity for the risk of genuine contact (“Why do you sleep alone, when you have one thousand likes?”).

The remix EP is a generous, thirty-nine-minute set featuring six versions by COMON, Heinrich Matis & Jules Heffner, Mess Me, Sugarstarr, Talul, and Thomas Schwartz & Fausto Fanizza. The essence of the song remains in all cases, though the remixers naturally twist the material into slightly different shapes, even if most are thoroughly club-focused. Funking up the original with a heaving, bass-prodded groove, Matis and Heffner largely collapse its pop song structure to re-envision it as an atmospheric club track, while COMON energizes the original with a catchy club strut whose infectious spirit is hard to deny. In addition, Sugarstarr's opts for a jacking funk treatment (with a bit of house sprinkled in for good measure), Talul serves up a haunting late-night (early-morning, if you prefer) version that's sweetened by a delicious bass pulse, and Schwartz and Fanizza craft a thrumming trance-house dynamo from Sheens' material. They're all credible mixes for sure, but to these ears it's Talul's that stands out the most for being so elegant and understated.

January 2014